Learning Outcomes:
Substantive knowledge
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
- Understand and apply the comparative method to the study of political systems.
- Understand how democratic and authoritarian regimes differ in their institutional design, including executives, legislatures, constitutions, and courts.
- Display knowledge of how electoral systems, political parties, and quotas shape political representation and participation.
- Critically assess the functioning of civil service, media, civil society, and multi-level governance across different political systems.
- Understand comparative variation in welfare states and nationalism as forces shaping domestic
politics.
Skills (Intellectual and Transferable)
The lectures will encourage you to:
- Listen carefully and critically to orally presented arguments.
- Develop selective and efficient note-taking methods.
- Make links between material presented at different times, on different issues.
The assessments in the course (one-hour mid-term closed-book multiple-choice exam and end-of-term
examination) will require you to:
- Follow lecture content and read the assigned literature.
- Understand, analyse and assess that material.
- Distinguish between closely related concepts, institutions, and processes with precision.
- Write in a concise and cogent style.