81751 - POLITICS OF EUROPEAN DEMOCRACIES

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

The course aims at analyzing the main European political systems. At the end of the course, students will know about European parties and party systems, will be able to identify similarities and differences among various national polities, as well as to assess the strengths and weaknesses of different political institutions and institutional systems.

Contenuti

This course will concentrate on the political  institutions and processes of representative democracy within a group of countries that are similar in many important respects – advanced industrial   democracies in Western Europe –  but nonetheless differ in crucial ways.

This comparative approach will allow us to highlight important variations  regarding electoral systems, organization of parliaments, government formation and executive-legislative relations.  

The course is divided into two parts. In the first one (five weeks)  the instructor will present the analytical framework to be used for comparative purposes. In the second part of the course (five weeks) students' active participation is  required  to analyze  in a more detailed fashion party competition and government formation in a selected set of countries. Class will be divided into small groups  that will be involved in oral  presentations of case-studies (based on Wolfgang C. Mueller & Kaare Strom (eds), Coalition Governments in Western Europe, Oxford University Press, 2003.) As this book was published a few years ago,  students will  have to update chapters' content by looking at the most recent elections and government formation processes  in the countries taken into account under the supervision of the instructor.

Testi/Bibliografia

Students  are required to read selected chapters of the following textbook:

Michael Gallagher, Michael Laver, Peter Mair, Representative Government in Modern Europe, McGraw Hill, fifth edition, 2011.

Clark R., Golder M. and S. Golder, Principles of Comparative Politics, Sage CQ Press 2013 (2nd edition)

For students' presentations we will rely on the following book:

Wolfgang C. Mueller & Kaare Strom (eds), Coalition Governments in Western Europe, Oxford University Press, 2003.

Metodi didattici

This course is organized as a seminar. The basic format will be classroom lectures and students' presentations.

 

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

For students  attending  classes

The assessment is based on the following elements:

- active participation (30%)

- oral presentation of a book chapter (40%)

- final written exam (30%)

 

For students who are not able to attend classes

Students who are not able to attend classes must read the following chapters:

Michael Gallagher, Michael Laver, Peter Mair, Representative Government in Modern Europe, McGraw Hill, fifth edition, 2011,  Introduction, chapter 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12.

Clark R., Golder M. and S. Golder, Principles of Comparative Politics, Sage CQ Press 2013 (2nd edition), chapters 12, 13, 14 and 15.

Their knowledge of these chapters will be tested through a written exam. Moreover they  will have to write a short paper that substitutes the oral presentation. Students are invited to contact the teacher in order to choose a topic.

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Powerpoint slides, articles and other materials will be available on line at the following website http://campus.cib.unibo.it.

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Daniela Giannetti