The course aims at making students familiar with the key problems, concepts and tools of political science, as well as with the empirical results produced by the discipline through the application of its method in comparative perspective.

Knowledge and understanding: The course will make students familiar with the key conceptual and theoretical tools at the core of the discipline, as well as with the empirical results produced by the discipline through the application of its method in comparative perspective. Applying knowledge and understanding: At the end of the course, students will be able to: 1) Critically review a scientific article; 2) Apply theoretical models to make sense of real politics; 3) Understand the processes and dynamics of contemporary politics; 4) Compare and assess contemporary political processes in comparative perspective. Making judgements: We expect students to be able to assess and understand real political processes in light of the main theoretical tools and approaches developed by the discipline. Furthermore, they are expected to be able to discuss critical political issues in comparative perspective, as well as to understand why, how and where certain political processes occur and which are the main political actors involved in these processes. Communication Skills Throughout the course students will participate to various discussions, and will offer an in-class presentation, based on their own reading of a relevant article from the scientific literature. Presentations are aimed to familiarize students with scientific articles, to improve their critical reading of scientific literature, and to develop their public-speech skills. At the end of the course, students will be therefore able to publicly discuss relevant issues at the core of the discipline. Learning skills Students will acquire the tools allowing them to make autonomous and independent evaluations of current political issues in their complexity and specific dynamics. In particular, they will acquire the ability to construct knowledge and arguments based on a variety of materials, ranging from textbooks to actual research articles, to research monographs, to fellow students’ presentations, and finally to discussion. These skills will be developed and stimulated by means of discussions, presentations in class, and critical review of scientific articles and books on current socio-political issues.

Political science is the scientific analysis of political phenomena. Using empirical research methods typical of the social sciences, the discipline examines the processes and dynamics that shape political activity, with particular attention to the behavior of political actors and the influence of political institutions. Each topic covered in this course will include a review of major theories and methodologies, alongside the presentation of recent empirical evidence. Following a brief introduction, the course begins by examining the nation-state and democratic regimes. We will address three questions: What is democracy? What causes democracy to emerge? What are the varieties of democracy? The next section investigates the processes of political representation in democracies, focusing on: a) key actors (parties, voters, social movements); b) the interactions among these actors, including both electoral and non-electoral accountability; and c) how varying political institutions influence these processes. After a detailed analysis of the characteristics and interactions of political institutions (i.e. parliaments and cabinets), the course devotes a section to public policy (examining the decision-making outputs of the political system and their effects on the distribution of power). Finally, we will address contemporary challenges to representative democracy, with particular attention to populism, and conclude by comparing non-democratic regimes with what we have learned about democratic functioning.

Main reference textbook [required] : Caramani (ed., 2023), Comparative Politics (6th ed), Oxford, OUP. [briefly: CP] Other materials distributed through MyLuiss (see specific weeks).

The course adopts a dynamic and interactive approach which attributes great importance to students’ participation and involvement in teaching sessions. The more traditional teaching methods are accompanied by interactive methods and tools that require students to be constantly active not only in class sessions, but also on their own at home.

A student is considered “attending” if they have at least 70% attendance, have given the in-class presentation, and have taken both the mid-term and final exams during the course. For attending students, the final grade will be based on: In-class presentation (20%) — Students, working in pairs, will deliver a 7-10-minutes presentation (with a maximum of three slides) on a short research article. The instructor may ask follow-up questions if aspects of the presentation are unclear or incomplete. Peers are encouraged to ask questions as well; active class participation is highly appreciated. Presentations will be scheduled from week 2 onwards. Mid-term exam covering weeks 1–6 (40%) — Four open-ended questions to be answered in 1 hour. Final exam covering weeks 7–12 (40%) — Four open-ended questions to be answered in 1 hour. Correct answers will be based on: (a) the assigned chapters and mandatory readings for all course weeks; and (b) instructor presentations and class slides distributed during the course (excluding slides made by students for their presentations). Students who achieve a grade of 30/30 across the three components may (optionally) participate in a brief oral examination on the entire course for possible “cum laude” distinction. This oral exam can be taken during any session (“appello”) of the exam period.

Final theses are usually structured in terms of a research question (relationship between variables: explanation of a political outcome in terms of another phenomenon or characteristic), and should be structured as follows: 1) one or more case studies are presented; 2) the relevant literature on the more general relationship between variables is reviewed; 3) the particular case(s) are finally analysed by relying on such literature. Unfortunately, we can only supervise a limited number of theses. As a result, in order to offer students equal opportunities, we employ the following procedure: 1) Criteria for accepting requests are: a) exam grade; b) quality of the proposed project. 2) Based on past experience, we suggest to only apply with an exam grade of 28-29 or higher. Requests with lower grades might still be considered, but they will definitely have lower chances of being accepted. 3) Early requests will not be accepted: rather, all requests will be considered at once, in a single round after all exam calls 4) Thesis requests should be presented in the form of a one-page project (with some initial bibliography) detailing the research question and the specific case studies considered. We will then publish a shortlist of potentially acceptable requests; shortlisted requests will then be discussed together in one-to-one meetings scheduled shortly after, and a decision will be made after these meetings.