Academic Year 2018/2019
- Docente: Salvatore Vassallo
- Credits: 10
- Language: Italian
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Forli
- Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in International relations and diplomatic affairs (cod. 8048)
Learning outcomes
The course provides notions about the method, concepts, categories, and key patterns of Political Science. At the end of the course the student is able to describe and interpret political phenomena and, in particular, the funtioning and transformations of democratic political systems. The course also provides students with intellectual tools for decoding the current political debate, as well as with logical and linguistic tools for communicating the results of their analysis to an audience of specialists and non-specialists.
Course contents
The first section of this course provides students with the definition of some basic categories and concepts (politics, political regimes, political participation). Long-term processes of democratization are analyzed and characteristics of democratic regimes are defined, in comparison with non-democratic ones. In this section, actors and institutions of democracies will be reviewed in comparative perspective.
The second section provides a description of the main democratic countries of Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain) and the United States, with particular attention to political participation, elections, parliaments, the legislative process, formation and stability of governments, territorial institutions, the main aspects of policy making, the role of the country in international politics.
In the final classes we will be able to analyze other national cases (Spain, Poland, Brasil, Japan, South Africa) and to discuss the perspectives and challenges democracies face at the beginning of the XXI century.
A detailed syllabus will be circulated in the first class.
Readings/Bibliography
Salvatore Vassallo (a cura di), Sistemi politici comparati, Il Mulino, 2016 (seconda edizione).
Daniele Caramani, Will vs. Reason: The Populist and Technocratic Forms of Political Representation and Their Critique to Party Government, in "American Political Science Review", February 2017, pp. 54-67.
Salvatore Vassallo, Marco Valbruzzi, I partiti della Grande Recessione contro i partiti della Grande Depressione. Un nuovo cleavage o un'altra bolla?, in "Stato e mercato" 1/2018, pp. 87-116.
Teaching methods
The course will be organized in lessons, each dealing with a specific topic. Students attending to classes are warmly encouraged to read the assigned texts beforehand. Charts and figures shown in class will be made available after each lesson.
Assessment methods
During the
Teaching tools
Video projector. Pc. Online course materials.
Office hours
See the website of Salvatore Vassallo