PLSC 485b Midterm Study Guide

For the midterm exam, you are responsible for all of the materials covered in the readings and lectures up to, and including, Week 7. This study guide is intended to help you to prepare for the exam more efficiently. It is not exhaustive, and any course material not mentioned here may appear on the exam.

The weekly reading guides provide an important starting point to guide your review of the course readings. Use them.

Ideologies: Be prepared to offer a definition of ideology, and defend that definition. Be able to describe and distinguish between the following currents of political thought.

• Absolutism
• Tory Conservatism
• Classical Liberalism
• Welfare Liberalism/ Liberal Democracy
• Marxism
• Social Democracy

Among the aspects of an ideology you should be familiar with are the implications of each ideology for, human nature, human rights, the role of reason, the role of the state, and the justification or explanation for the existence of the state.

Names to Know: There are a large number of thinkers mentioned in this course. You should be sure that you are familiar with the important ideas associated with the following individuals.

• Jean Bodin
• Joseph De Maistre
• Edmund Burke
• Thomas Hobbes
• John Locke
• Baron de Montesquieu
• Adam Smith
• Jeremy Bentham
• Alexis de Tocqueville
• John Stuart Mill
• Thomas Hill Green
• Karl Marx
• Fredreich Engels
• Eduard Bernstein

Historical Events and Eras: One of the goals of this course is to make connections between social and political developments, and political thought. Know what social groups are associated with each of the ideologies discussed in the course. You should be able to describe the influence of these events/developments on currents of political thought.

• The wars of religion in France in the 1500's and the English Civil War of the 1600's.
• The emergence of a commercial/trading economy in the 1600's.
• The industrial revolution of the late 1700's and 1800's.
• The American and French Revolutions n the late 1700's.