IFCO 2595 - Politics of Global Population (20th-21st centuries). Demography, Migration, Public Health

Refugee crisis, climatic migrations, old and new epidemics, viability of the retirement schemes, female empowerment, new family and sexual behaviors and values, collapse in fertility rates, death toll of wars and man-made hazards… Never has the population been intertwined with so many political issues at the global scale. Another striking feature of the new demographic picture that emerges for the 21st century is the shrinking portion of the European population, both in purely quantitative and demographic terms, and from an analytical standpoint. Models which had been designed on the basis of the European experience (e.g. the so-called “demographic transition model”) are questioned by the various (and sometimes intriguing) demographic trajectories of emerging countries. Population patterns in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia, albeit internally heterogeneous, question the very way to articulate population, social and economic issues, and geopolitical stakes. The purpose of this course is to present global population issues at the world scale but from the standpoint, and through the comparison, of these three regions. The European and North and South American continents will be apprehended through the lenses of the new questions which are raised by those three regional cases. This lecture course, organized around five issues, will provide a general insight on the interaction between demography on the one hand, national and international policies on the other hand. It will explain how to question social, health, labor, environmental, gender issues, but also international relations and balance of power, from the standpoint of population dynamics.

Paul-André ROSENTAL,Bérénice BERNARD

Cours magistral seul

English

One reading (article format) will be required for each session of the course.

Any form of interest in interdisciplinary thinking is welcome since the course will involve (geo)political, historical, economic, anthropological considerations. No statistical background is required, only a lack of allergy to the use of numbers in reasoning.

Spring 2024-2025

A 1.000 word-paper at mid-semester and a final examination based on a dissertation with the help of documents to discuss. Active participation will be part of the evaluation, on the basis of mini-quiz during the sessions.

Each session will include a collective discussion of the reading of the week. Comments by the professor and TA will follow.