OVERVIEW

The course aims at providing students with the conceptual tools for the understanding of the political systems of West European democracies. A specific attention will be devoted to social cleavages and to the historical determinants of Europe’s social structure. The key features of democracies and autocracies will be assessed. The course will investigate the possible emergence of new cleavages “at the time of populism”. Finally, the course will present and discuss comparative research methods.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course will examines the following topics: 1) the comparative method; 2) the comparative study of contemporary democracies; 3) the comparative analysis of recent democratizations.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

By attending the module and its activities the students will:

• Understand comparative research methods
• Understand the evolution and the features of the political systems in Western Europe;
• Understand the cleavages and historical determinants of Europe’s social structure;
• Grasp the significance of political transformation in West European political systems;
• Identify the proper roles of institutional actors in West European political systems.
• Describe and classify regime types
• Identify the role and the nature of different governmental models, party systems and electoral systems
• Assess the roots of crises of democracy
• Understand the relations between parties, parliaments, and foreign and security policy, devoting specific attention to identify drivers and patterns of the evolution of populist parties in West European political systems;
• Present a paper through a poster session;
• Discuss issues of political science through movies and TV series.
• Understand how research centres, institutions, and other actors practically deal with comparative politics
• Analyse report, scientific papers, official docs on comparative politics

The module will devote a specific attention to research design and comparison

AIMS

• The module aims at providing basic knowledge on comparative politics, illustrating features of governments, parliaments, electoral systems, party systems.
• The module illustrate comparative research methods
• The module aims at providing a comprehensive conceptual toolkit to understand the role the evolution and the features of the political systems in Western Europe and beyond
• The module helps investigating what democracy is and is not
• The module helps debating the scholarly and public debate on the roots of crises of democracy at the time of populism

TEACHING METHODS

Teaching activities will be based also on active learning and seminars with experts in the field of comparative politics in order to foster debates and a constant involvement of students. Movies, blogs, papers will be adopted.

The main issue of one class will be decided by (the majority of) students at the beginning of the course, according to their interests (e.g., the political system of another country, a specific political party, a current relevant topic in West European politics, etc.). A selection of issues will be provided.

Students are required to present a paper within the classroom though a poster session. Otherwise, students can choice to present a movie linked to a chapter/paper discussed in class.

Additional readings and web resources may be given during the semester.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The module illustrates:

• Overview of Western European Political Systems
• The relevance of comparative politics
• Nation-state, democracies, and authoritarian regimes
• Social cleavages and political families
• Political parties, party systems and electoral systems
• Parliaments, Executives, Governments (Consensus Model vs. Westminster Model, coalitions, and governments)
• Electoral behavior and political competition
• Party families and cleavages structure at the time of populism
• Political culture
• Context and Features of selected political systems in Europe
• Parties, Parliaments, and Foreign Policy in Western Europe.
• Democracies in post conflicts and the role of power sharing
• Comparative research methods (e.g., why and how to compare)

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Compulsory texts

Selected chapters from: Caramani, D. (ed.) (2020), Comparative Politics, Oxford University Press

Selected papers from authors as Almond, Lijphart, Sartori, Mair, Lipset, Morlino, Przeworski, Rokkan, Mudde, Collier, Tsebelis, Gerring, Schmitter and others. A detailed bibliography to be found in a list on Aulaweb site.

Texts at your choice (two for attending students, 4 for non-attending students) 

Selected papers from authors as Almond, Lijphart, Sartori, Mair, Lipset, Morlino, Przeworski, Rokkan, Mudde, Collier, Tsebelis, Gerring, Schmitter and others. A detailed bibliography to be found in a list on Aulaweb site.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

FABRIZIO COTICCHIA (President)

MARA MORINI (President)

MARCO DI GIULIO

STELLA GIANFREDA

DIANA SPULBER

LESSONS

LESSONS START

February 2021

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The written exam will assess the acquired knowledge in the field of comparative politics, evaluation the students’ skills in addressing specific issues and concepts. The oral exam allows assessing the student’s capability in interpreting different concepts and cases.

Exam schedule