3.0

credits

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This course will explore the relationship between racial inequality, racial politics, and policy-making in the western world, particularly as it concerns the fight for equality by people of African descent in the US, Canada, Britain, and France. It will cover historical and contemporary struggles over policy, beginning with the African-American civil rights movement, the ensuing War on Poverty and War on Drugs, and followed by contemporary debates over immigration, racial segregation, poverty and racial economic inequality across the four countries. We will take insights from theory and empirical research to study the role that racial constructs and politics play in policy designs, contests over power and resources, electoral representation, public opinion, social movements, and political change. Through case studies of policies aimed at racial inequality (e.g., affirmative action, police reform, urban revitalization), we will examine why and under what circumstances they arise, what form they take, and in what ways they alleviate or reproduce racial inequality. These questions will be considered in light of the broader impact of neo-liberalism on normative ideas about policy, race, and inequality.