Course Details

Course offered Autumn 2024

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

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

SLN 16448 (View UW registration info »)

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

Credits: 5
Limit: 30 students

15 seats reserved for incoming Honors students.

We will consider the following five 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. Leadership always has a political context; leadership in a democracy is necessarily different than leadership in other kinds of political regimes.

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

5. 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 a visiting scholars/practitioner. 

Professor Soder is glad to talk with you further about any aspect of the course, please reach him via email: rsoder@uw.edu