One person, one vote—Political representation from Aristotle to the 2016 Presidential Election
Course Description:
What does it mean for a government to justly represent its people? What do we mean by “one person, one vote”? In the 2016 Evenwel v. Abbott case, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the long-standing principle that each person (including children, felons, and non-citizens) rather than each voter should be counted in apportioning political representation. In writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appealed to “history, precedent, and practice” to argue that the appellants “have shown no reason for the Court to disturb this longstanding use of total population.” This course explores the “history, precedent, and practice” of political representation alongside its ethical, political, and mathematical contexts. The course will start by investigating the long (and surprising) history of conceptions of political representation in the West. We will explore how the meaning and importance of the term “representation” changed from the direct democracies of Greek city states to Medieval notions of corporate life to contemporary political theories in order to better understand the relationship between representation and consent. Alongside works of political theory, we will study imagined conceptions of political participation in plays, novels, and film.
As part of the course, we will study, analyze, and re-enact crucial sections of a remarkable document: the contemporary notes of the Putney Debates (1647). In it, we will see a “live” argument of universal, male suffrage taking place during the English Civil Wars.
In 2018, the course also included a Data Expedition. A Data Expedition is a two week exercise carried out in class in collaboration with a graduate student. It’s purpose is to introduce the undergraduate students to data analysis and visualization methods.
Readings:
Aristotle, Politics, trans. T. A. Sinclair (Penguin).
Shakespeare, Coriolanus, (Folger Shakespeare Library).
Machiavelli, The Prince (Oxford).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Penguin).
David Hume, Essays (Liberty Fund): http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-essays-moral-political-literary-lf-ed
Sir William Clarke, Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates. You can print a free digital version of this volume: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-essays-moral-political-literary-lf-ed