During decades waves of democratisation and neo-liberal economic policies have dominated global discourses about politics, society, and development. Originally hailed as the harbingers of more wealthy, just and democratic societies and polities, the limits have become painfully clear even before financial and economic downturns. This course examines how a range of socio-economic and political transformations have generated new or reinvigorated existing mechanisms of exclusion, insecurities, emerging informal powers and rivalries between different sources of sovereignty and have hence given rise to conflicts and violence. Manifestations are lynching, gangs, organized crime, and sudden uprisings and riots. Yet all these phenomena occur within the framework of apparently successful democracies and liberalized open economies. What does this mean for our understanding of contemporary democracies and notions of rule of law and justice? This course approaches these phenomena and questions above all by reading and discussing ethnographic (case) studies, mainly about the global South. Theoretically, it investigates the meanings and explanatory power of concepts developed to come to grips with paradoxical trends such as violent democracies, gray zones, fragmented sovereignties, and informal orders. The course navigates between literatures from anthropology, political science and sociology.

 

Format
There will be two hours of lectures per week (occasionally supplemented by documentaries), and two hours of student presentations and group discussions. This means that the second weekly meeting is run by two or three students. The course guide details weekly themes related to lectures and readings, but for the rest the chairpersons are at liberty to organize the two hours in the ways they see fit as long as they critically and creatively engage with the literature and the major topics and concepts of the course. They may hold oral presentations, use audiovisual material, raise discussion questions, simulate a trial or press conference, perform a role play with the class, hold a debate or a quiz, etc. The content and form of these presentations will be graded by the instructor.