Undergraduate Courses

Environmental Sociology (Spring 2023, University of Warwick)

Environmental sociology offers important insights for understanding the social roots of environmental problems, unequal exposures to toxic pollution and risks from ecological disasters, and political and economic interests in environmental conflicts. This module introduces students to environmental sociology, a field that examines the role that power and social inequality play in shaping human and nonhuman interactions, while drawing attention to the inseparability of humans and nonhumans. It explores a range of perspectives and topics within the field, including political ecology, ecological Marxism, consumption and production, global environmental justice, risk, toxicity, environmental conflict, environmentalism of the poor, and environmental crisis.

The module aims to introduce students to the field of environmental sociology, which interrogates the relationship between society and the environment, while simultaneously challenging the idea that society and the environment can be meaningfully separated. By taking this module, students will gain an understanding of key theoretical perspectives, debates, topics, and new directions within environmental sociology and the importance of this critical area of sociological study for understanding global environmental problem and change.

Conflict, Contention, and Climate Change (Winter 2022, Stanford University Courses in Oxford)

How have changes in the natural environment affected political and environmental development globally? What impacts might climate change have on future development? This course addresses these questions through the lens of conflict, security, and peacebuilding. The course aims to familiarize students with both academic and policy debates around climate security and development. Students should end the course with an understanding of key themes and debates, starting with an introduction to theories of security, contentious politics, and peacebuilding. Students should also be familiar with the difficulty of measurement and possible data bias in climate studies. Students should be able to discuss specific policy issues of food and agriculture, water, and migration and support their arguments with evidence from case studies. Throughout the term, the course will ask students to consider voices are represented in these debates—who does security and development serve?

Syllabus available here

Politics of Latin America (Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, University of Oxford)

This course focuses on the politics of the major states of Latin America and the current challenges – economic, social and political - to their democratic governments. It is organized around key concepts and categories from mainstream comparative politics, and comparative methods will be used throughout to analyse the main issues. Yet the course also demonstrates the continuing relevance of the historical and cultural contexts of Latin American politics, and the main issues are placed in context by reference to the politics of particular countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. In this way topical questions can be studied with reference to the enduring characteristics of the politics of the region.

Introduction to the Practice of Politics (Fall 2021, University of Oxford)

These tutorials introduce students firstly to the way government is classified across democratic regimes, and to debates about the merits and drawbacks of each type: particularly the implications for political stability, and for policy performance. The next set of tutorial topics considers political institutions under a range of regimes with different governance structures. In this section general questions are asked about the nature of the state: where it comes from, and what determines differences between states – particularly in terms of ‘state capacity’, and stability. The third set considers, mainly in advanced democracies, key government institutions, the debates surrounding each type of institution, and the issues that arise when comparing specific institutions between countries. In this section you look mainly at the key dynamic tension between legislature and executive, though you also consider the operation of counter-powers against majoritarian government (based in the judiciary, direct democracy, decentralisation etc.). Finally, the tutorials examine – again mostly in advanced democracies - what determines the shape and operation of political parties and the party system, and the extent to which the values and attitudes on which political appear to be changing, why this is so, and how we might measure such changes. In this section, you consider not only stable attitudes and structured partisan competition, but also more deeply divided and contested politics, and sources of populism and radicalism, and identity politics.

Comparative Government (Fall 2021, Spring 2022, University of Oxford)

The goal of the Comparative Government paper is to understand variation in important political outcomes across countries and time. This paper emphasizes understanding the causes and consequences of different government institutions. We do not simply compare democracies with other regimes. We also look at variation within democratic states. Our aim is that by the end of the course - by the end of your 3rd year - students should understand what the key determinants of regime stability and regime change are, how political institutions vary, why they vary, what effects they have, and how their effects are mediated or constrained by other factors.

Advanced Paper in Theories of Justice (Winter 2021, University of Oxford)

The Advanced Paper in Theories of Justice aims to provide second and third year undergraduates with a thoroughgoing grounding in some of the most important debates in contemporary political theory. Building on work in political theory in Prelims and in other theory-related papers, it seeks to extend students’ knowledge and understanding of the content and scope of principles of justice, and allow them to assess the normative underpinnings of key real world policy debates. It aims to provide a significant foundation of analytical skills and theoretical knowledge for students who aspire to further study in contemporary political theory at post-graduate level.

Graduate Courses

Qualitative methods for MSc students in Sociology (Fall 2020, 2021, University of Oxford), Teaching Assistant