This course is an introduction to theories that have shaped our thinking about power, authority, justice, and social change in modern liberal societies. We examine the meanings and moral foundations of rights; the idea of a social contract; state sovereignty vs. individual autonomy; competing conceptions of human nature and their implications for political theory; the role of reason in politics; the concepts of justice, liberty, equality, individualism, and democracy; the way in which political ideals can have different meanings in different historical contexts; exploitation and class struggle; patriarchy and feminism; the struggle against racial oppression; violence and non-violence; the re-emergence of political authoritarianism; the economic and political roots of the ecological crisis and the development of an eco-socialist perspective. Students critically analyze and evaluate selections from the primary texts by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Thoreau, Mill, Marx, Dewey, and Gandhi as well as those of selected contemporary theorists. The relevance of these thinkers and their theories to contemporary social and political issues will be a concern throughout the course.