00895 - Political Science (A-L)

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 analysed and characteristics of democratic regimes are defined, in comparison with non-democratic ones. Finally, this section provides a framework for the comparative analysis of democracies. The second section is based on the well-known Arend Lijphart comparative scheme, where contemporary democracies are classified based on aspects such as party systems, electoral systems, coalitions, government election and stability, interests representation, centre-periphery relations. At the same time, some of the most important hypotheses developed in comparative politics are discussed, regarding the above mentioned variables and how they are connected to each other. The third section provides a description of the main European countries (Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, Spain) and the United States, with particular attention to the dimensions covered in the previous section. In the final classes we explore some attempts to evaluate the impat of political and institutional features of democracies on their performance and specifically their development, macro-economicstability and the reduction of inequalities.

Readings/Bibliography

Giliberto Capano, Simona Piattoni, Francesco Raniolo e Luca Verzichelli, Manuale di Scienza Politica, Il Mulino, 2014.
Arend Lijphart, Le democrazie contemporanee, Il Mulino, 2014.
Salvatore Vassallo (a cura di), Sistemi politici comparati, Il Mulino, 2005.

Teaching methods

The course will be organised in 25 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 course there will be three written tests to be taken by the students, for learning assessment on themes pointed out in class by the instructor and treated in reference texts. Each test consists of open-ended questions. The time allotted is 45 minutes. The final evaluation will be the average of the three scores. If the average is greater than or equal to 31, the final grade will be 30 e lode. You can not selectively reject the valuation obtained on one written test. For those who have not attended at least two tests, there is a single written test to be held during the january-Februray or September examination sessions that will focus on the whole program. Those who participated in only two written tests can save those scores and take a written test on the only remaining part during the January-February examination session. Those who are not satisfied with the score achieved in the written tests can take an oral exam which will focus on the whole program.

Teaching tools

Video projector. Pc. Online course materials.

Office hours

See the website of Salvatore Vassallo