POL30840 Electoral Systems and their Consequences

Academic Year 2020/2021

This course covers electoral systems and their consequences for descriptive representation, the political process and policy outputs. During the first part, the main types of electoral systems and their functioning are introduced. In the second part, we deal with various consequences of electoral systems, including effects on the party system, the representation of women, intra-party politics and economic policies.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

During this course, students learn
* to distinguish different types of electoral systems and describe their key features
* to use different datasets on the prevalence and consequences of electoral systems
* to develop an own research question regarding consequences of electoral systems
* to choose empirical data for answering this question and conduct a basic analysis of the data
* to communicate the results in form of a short research paper

Indicative Module Content:

Types of electoral systems. Electoral system effects on: vote-seat-proportionality, the party system, descriptive representation, policy congruence, personal vote-seeking, intra-party politics and selected policy outcomes.

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

20
Autonomous Student Learning

200
Total

220
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
Lectures. In-class work. Exploring quantitative data. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations
Learning Recommendations:

Having taken an introductory course to Comparative Politics/Institutions before would be helpful, but this is not a strict requirement.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Equivalents:
Electoral Systems (POL30790)


 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Assignment: Written review of a randomly chosen coursemate's proposal Unspecified n/a Graded No

15
Assignment: Written paper proposal Unspecified n/a Graded No

15
Assignment: Description of an electoral system Unspecified n/a Graded No

20
Project: Research paper with empirical component Unspecified n/a Graded No

50

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Peer review activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Not yet recorded.