The course aims at providing a structured knowledge of the conflicts, actors, institutions, and processes that affect contemporary politics. As a result, the course aims at another important goal: forming students provided with an autonomous capacity of understanding the contemporary political dynamics. The course aims at combining theoretical analysis with the use of empirical data in order to understand and compare European political systems. The course is based on a direct connection with the activity of the CISE (Italian Centre for Electoral Studies).

Knowledge and understanding: students will develop a structured knowledge of the main tools of comparative method as well as the conflicts, actors, institutions, and processes that affect contemporary politics. Applying knowledge and understanding: students will be provided the tools to be critical, competent and informed users of theories and techniques of comparison, with specific regard to political systems. Making judgements: students will be able to autonomously understand the contemporary political dynamics. Communication skills: through in-class presentations of empirical scientific articles, students will learn how to convey data and other empirical evidence emerging from the comparative analysis to an audience, both possessing technical skills or not. Learning skills: the student will be able to conduct comparative research on conflicts, actors, institutions, and processes of contemporary politics and write articles and research reports based on the review of the literature or the use of original empirical data.

The course analyses the conflicts, actors, institutions, and processes that affect contemporary politics. The topic is confronted through a recognition of the international (and Italian) literature in a comparative perspective, with specific regard to post-War War II Western Europe. All the theoretical perspectives are presented together with actual data and examples taken from empirical analyses, and discussed interactively with students, by referring to Italy or other European countries. The course consists of two parts. The the first part is dedicated to studying some key topics in the current debate among comparative politics scholars: 1)Nation-states and democracies; 2) the decline of social cleavages; 3) the role of territory and the vote nationalization process; 4) political parties and their organizational transformations; 5) the role of the institutional context and specifically electoral systems as constraints of political actors’ strategies and choices 6) the crisis of ‘party government’ and the challenges to contemporary democracies (populism and technocracy); 7) the process of globalization and the emergence of new conflicts.

The first part of the course is not based on a textbook but, in each week, students are required to study scientific articles and book chapters (in Italian or English) provided by the instructor. The second part of the course is based on the following book: Chiaramonte, A. and Emanuele, V. (2022), The deinstitutionalization of Western European party systems, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lectures; Presentations by the students of scientific articles; Discussion and debate on the topics of the course; teamwork

Class attendance (10%); In-class individual presentation of a scientific article (20%); Written in itinere exam (25%); Students' teamwork on a research topic (5%); Production of a short paper (2000 words minimum, 3000 words maximum) based on a review of the literature on a topic of the course (20%). Final oral exam (20%); If an attending student does not perform one of the foreseen assessments, she maintains the attending status but receives an evaluation equal to 0 on this assessment. Non-attending students will make the final oral exam, whose weight will be equal to 100% and will also include the readings presented by the attending students during the course.

30/30 grade. Positive assessment of the thesis project.