Themen der Lehrveranstaltung
The course is mandatory for the PPE and it belongs to the disciplinary sector of Political Science. The course provides an overview of the main concepts; theories, methods, and topics of Comparative Politics together with some first insights into the academic and professional practice of political research.
Students will be encouraged to actively take part to the classes by discussing and critically analyzing the studied subjects. This continuous exercise will provide the students with the tool and the needed knowledge to professionally discuss and analyze phenomena concerning political institutions, behaviors and outcomes.
The course will cover the following aspects:
· What is comparative politics and how to study it: this first part introduces the course. It is dedicated to explaining the relevance of the discipline together with the main approaches in comparative politics and the core methods used.
· Lessons from the history and beyond: this part of the course will be dedicated to understanding the origin of the nation-state, the type of polities and regimes, focusing on democracies (meaning and types of democracy), and authoritarian states.
· Political structures and institutions: this part of the course provides notions on legislatures, governments, and bureaucracies, constitutional rights and judicial power, elections, and referenda with a focus on the multilevel structure of the European Union.
· Who is in there and how it works: this part of the course is dedicated to understanding parties and party systems but also interest groups, social movements, and other core actors of politics adopting both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective.
· Culture, communication, and participation: ideas, attitudes, political participation, and communication (with a special focus on populism and Euroscepticism).
· Comparative political outcomes: public policies and political change.
· Comparative political methods: the course offers an overview of the commonly used methods exploring also interdisciplinary methodologies.
· Course summary: refresh all the core “take-aways” of the course, focusing on understanding research texts, their structure, and methods. During the course summary part, students will engage in an exam simulation (either written or oral).
The various course sections will be structured to provide the students with basic discipline knowledge alongside some aspects of contemporary political phenomena (e.g.: the effects of the crises, political elections and so on). Furthermore, while discussing the proposed themes references to concrete and current case studies will be done.
Propädeutische Lehrveranstaltungen
None
Unterrichtsform
The course comprises lectures, seminars, and event participation. Students are strongly encouraged to actively engage during lectures.