The first objective of the course is to investigate why some societies and their respective governments have managed to produce public goods and prosperity and others have not, and what accounts for these differences. Using some fundamental texts from the field of comparative politics, both theoretical and empirical, and canvassing contemporary indexes, the class discusses the different theories, which explain the performance of various political and constitutional regimes, and weighs the evidence in their favour. The second objective of this course is to understand how states acquire one or another set of such political institutions with a view to identifying theories of change grounded in the political economy of specific historical contexts. We also aim to understand how these individual trajectories converge or diverge in an interdependent world, and what the consequences are for the present and future world order. The empirical evidence is drawn from a variety of cases across the world, discussed in the comparative framework of their continent or income group, individually or in pairs (i.e., Russia and Ukraine, Estonia and Finland, Mexico and the United States, Italy and France, North and South Korea, Botswana and Zimbabwe). The third objective of the course is to make students familiar with the comparative method, both using a large number of countries (N) and just a few (n), by using a variety of indicators (constitutional, sociological, economic, etc.) and the logic of inference at the basis of comparative research.

Knowledge and understanding By the end of the course, students will acquire: ● Capacity to compare states, nations, regimes and markets across the current world both as regime outputs and causes; ● Knowledge of the main indicators used in comparative politics and governance, and the ability to use them for political analysis; ● Knowledge of how democracies and autocracies, on the one hand, and how nation-states and empires, on the other, interact on the global stage. Applying knowledge and understanding Students will be able to apply the acquired knowledge in their future professional activities in several ways. In particular, they will be trained in: ● Collecting and engaging with relevant academic as well as non-academic literature and grasping the key content; ● Discussing topics and readings in class with the instructor and with colleagues; ● Summoning evidence to diagnose a country’s political regime and governance; ● Carrying out research (either academic or for professional purposes) on the content of the course, also applying the relevant methodologies of the discipline; ● Writing academic papers. Making judgements Due to the emphasis placed on re-elaboration and discussion of the readings, students will be able to: ● Understand and practice inferential analysis and evidence based on comparisons across cases; ● Develop knowledge of the main databases in comparative politics and the ability to work as a team; ● Thanks to the understanding of the course’s key topics and debates, develop an autonomous and critical judgement about current affairs from a comparative perspective. Communication skills During the course, students will be asked to contribute to the discussion as part of their permanent research group. Due to this, they will: ● Improve the control of course-related terminology in English, but at the same time be able to present complex content in an easily accessible form; ● Become acquainted with engaging in critical discussion in front of a larger audience, communicating questions or comments in a clear way to the rest of the class, thus stimulating a general debate; ● Learn from each other. Learning skills By the end of the course, students are expected to acquire the following skills: ● Capacity to autonomously carry out comparative research work on different topics related to the course; ● Ability to present the results of the research in oral and written form, particularly through academic papers; ● Capacity to engage with opposite arguments and to develop one’s own position in a well-organized and clear way based on facts or data; ● Capacity to compare complex phenomena and develop a broad perspective on assessing problems.

This course addresses the core themes, theories and methods within the field of comparative politics. Its focus is on comparative political development at a global level.

Boix, C. & Stokes, S. C. (Eds.) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. King, G., Keohane, R. O. & Verba, S. (2021) Designing Social Inquiry Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. New edition. Princeton: Princeton University. (available via Perlego)

Once per week, initial on-site lecture followed by a discussion, totalling 90 minutes. Students should cover the assigned readings and be prepared to answer questions if quizzed – based on the readings and their knowledge of the political institutions of their own country. Once per week, on-site 90-minute seminar on comparative politics methodology, where workgroups are expected to deliver every week. Students will be assigned to groups to cover continents or regions. The contribution of every group to the seminar will be to present the indicator featured that week (in relation with the lecture) on their continent of study, retrieving the data, pasting it in a xls table and drawing a chart to highlight the regional average, the negative and positive outliers, and sharing it with the class, which would allow comparisons across countries and continents. Groups should meet at least twice outside class to coordinate their internal labor division until the end of the division and the final group assignment.

The grade for the course will be determined equally on the basis of two components, continuous assessment (30%) and final exam (70%), which includes a 20% participation grade. 1) Continuous assessment. All groups will have to survey a region assigned to them. Every week, each group will give a short, single-slide presentation to discuss a specific indicator related to their assigned region, to evaluate its performance and discuss the main research questions, how countries compare and if and how this variable contributes towards prosperity. The group peer learning exercise will cumulatively build on the group presentations. Each group will have to compile a database of 11 indicators based on the weekly online class presentations. If work is completed continuously week by week, the final task should smoothly follow from the presentations. Therefore, students are strongly encouraged to take the presentations seriously and prepare well. At the end of the semester, every peer learning group would have completed one .ppt by session and one integrated .xls database on their region. 2) Final individual exam. 30 multiple-choice questions, including interpretation of simple charts. Participation. This exists to ensure that there is no free riding in the groups. Groups self-organize who presents in turn in class, and we run a simple survey of peer assessment to make sure that you get to grade your colleagues' input. Everybody has to prepare at least once. You are allowed to skip 3 classes without your grade being affected, but you are not allowed to escape group work and your presentation of group work when your turn comes. Attending students, provided they completed the previous continuous assessments, can sign up for an end-of-year exam (component 2 of the grade). Students have the chance to attend only a single appello in the winter exam season, either the first or the second. If a student remains discontented with the grade of the first appello, they will not be able to sign up for the second winter appello. All attending students, who rejected their grades from the winter exam season or have not attended any of them, can sign up for the third appello (retake session) in May/June 2026 and can decide whether to be considered attending or non-attending students. After the third appello, all students will be considered non-attending. Please note that non-attending students will be assessed differently. The examination method will be different, but the format is the same as for non-attending students and consists of 3 components: 1) Each non-attending student will have to compile a database of 11 indicators based on the assignments uploaded on Luiss Learn, under the section Instruction for continuous assessment. For non-attending students, the countries to be analyzed are Member States within the European Union. 2) Individual writing exercise. Students will have to answer the main comparative research question on the performance of countries in producing public goods in the groups’ assigned region (achievers, backsliders, average, explanatory factors) in a maximum of 8.000 words, inclusive of figures, exclusive of references. 3) Final individual exam. 30 multiple-choice questions. For non-attending students, the written end-of-year exam will make up 100% of the grade, but will thus have 3 components.

No specific criteria, except the salience of the topic and the effective interest of the student.