Course Details

Course offered Autumn 2020

HONORS 230 A: Leadership, Democracy, and a More Thoughtful Public (SSc)

HONORS 230 A: Leadership, Democracy, and a More Thoughtful Public (SSc)

SLN 16132 (View UW registration info »)

Roger Soder (Education)
Office: MGH 211, Box 353600
Email: rsoder@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 30 students

Honors Credit Type

15 seats reserved for current students
15 seats reserved for incoming Freshmen

We will consider the following six interrelated propositions, and we will consider the implications of these propositions for the conduct of good (i.e., ethical and effective) leadership.

1. Leadership involves at its base the creation of a persuaded audience; but beyond that, leadership involves creating and sustaining a more thoughtful public, a public capable of rising above itself.

2. A more thoughtful public must not only be created and sustained, but, given that things inevitably fall apart, must be recovered and reconstituted.

3. Good leadership involves ethical and effective information seeking. A leader must have knowledge of what must be done, knowledge of what it takes to persuade others of what must be done (and, in persuading, helping to create a more thoughtful public), and knowledge of how an audience/public will respond. Only with a thorough understanding of the principles, strategies, and costs of information seeking will one be able to engage in ethical and effective leadership.

4. Leadership always has a political context; leadership in a democracy is necessarily different than leadership in other kinds of political regimes.

5. Leadership always involves assumptions (tacit and acknowledged) about human nature.

6. In a free political regime, assuming free and fair elections, we get the kinds of leaders we deserve and we must consider how to behave in ways to deserve the kinds of leaders we say we want.

Sources of texts will include Tocqueville, Orwell, Machiavelli, Bacon, Dostoevsky, and Sophocles, as well as contemporary authors.

Method of instruction: close reading of texts, coupled with fifteen 1-2 page single-spaced papers on texts, plus a longer (approximately 6,500 words) synthesis paper; small and large group discussions with each other, two lectures, and two visiting scholars/practitioners.

Throughout the quarter, we will make theoretical and practical applications of key concepts to consideration of the critical issues of climate change and climate change communication.

I will be glad to talk with you further about any aspect of the course. The surest way to reach me is via email: rsoder@uw.edu