Political Science 451
Modern and Contemporary Political Theory
Final Exam Study Sheet
Exam: May 10 (Thursday), 12:30-2:30pm
Short answer section. The exam will have 12 short answer questions, of which you are to answer 10
(4 points each). As with the midterm, use the following list of terms and concepts to help you in
preparing for this section of the exam.
Necessary wage-rate
Proletarian-bourgeoisie
Rent
Concentration of capital
Competition of capitals
Alienation
Species being
Crude, state, and pure communism
Ascetic ideal
Money and effective need/vocation
History of class struggle
Engels’ Critique of Political economy
State of exception vs. state of emergency
Norm and decision
sociology and jurisprudence
Weber’s sociology of law
exception and miracle
sociology of concepts
Donoso Cortés
“exacting moral decision”
Lincoln and Wilson
zone of anomie
void of situation
langue (norm) to parole (app.)
Iustitium
pure violence
feasts
potestas
Essay Question. Two of the following three essays will be on the final. You will be required to write
an essay on one of the two.
1. In his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx argues that the best remedy against the
ravages of capitalism is competition. In your essay detail the arguments Marx gives that
support this position. What are the ravages of capitalism, how does capitalism help, and how
might governmental policy adopt Marx’s prescription?
2. In his Political Theology, Carl Schmitt begins with the claim that the “Sovereign is he who
decides on the exception.” By the end of this long essay, Schmitt is critical of the tendency
for political problems to be reduced to technical problems that become simply
“organizational-technical and economic-sociological tasks,” eliminating thereby the “core of
the political idea, the exacting moral decision.” (p. 65). In this essay, discuss what Schmitt
means by sovereignty, its relationship to the law and to juridical institutions, and finally how
this paves the way for his critique of what he saw as the rise of technocrats.
3. One of the consequences of the 9/11 attacks, according to Agamben, was that it further
solidified the normalization of the state of exception in society. What are some examples
from contemporary society and politics that you could point to to justify Agamben’s claim.
Later in the book Agamben then draws from Walter Benjamin’s concept of “pure violence”
to set the stage for his own conclusions. Detail these arguments and be sure to connect them
to your earlier discussion regarding the normalization of the state of exception.