Comparative Politics

Overview

This course aims to delve into essential themes within the field of Comparative Politics, providing students with the tools to comprehend fundamental structures, institutions, and processes that underpin contemporary political systems. Through the application of the comparative method, students will gain insight into the dynamics of real-world politics. The initial lectures will establish a theoretical foundation for the comparative method, emphasising its utility as a means of understanding diverse political landscapes. Subsequent lectures will employ this method to examine various themes, including regime types (democratic versus authoritarian), systems of governance (global versus local), institutions, political organisations and outputs of public policy. Notably, the course adopts a broad approach by not confining itself to specific geographic regions; instead, it explores a diverse range of cases to underscore the usefulness and applicability of the comparative method across different contexts.

Learning Objectives

On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
- Understand the field of comparative politics and be familiar with the comparative method.
- Identify key debates in the field of comparative politics and extrapolate key questions of theoretical and societal relevance.
- Demonstrate a basic understanding of differences between political institutions, key processes and the outcomes they produce.
- Demonstrate a basic understanding of the key actors active in political systems and the dynamics of power underpinning their relationships.
- Understand the main methodological approaches used in the field of comparative politics as well as the major data sources.
- Independently apply basic concepts of comparative politics to cases beyond the ones reviewed in class.

Skills

Intellectual skills:
- Managing & Prioritising Knowledge: identify relevant and subject-specific knowledge, sources and data; manage such information in an independent manner.
- Analytical Thinking: identify, understand, interpret and evaluate relevant subject-specific arguments made by others; construct independent arguments.
- Critical & Independent Thinking: ability to think critically and construct one’s own position in relation to existing and ongoing debates in the field.

Professional and career development skills:
- Communication Skills: ability to communicate clearly with others, both orally and in writing.
- Diversity: ability to acknowledge and be sensitive to the range of cultural differences present in the learning environment.
- Self-Reflexivity: ability to reflect on one’s own progress and identify and act upon one’s own development needs with respect to life-long learning and career development.
- Time Management: ability to negotiate diverse and competing pressures; cope with stress; and achieve a work / life balance.

Organisational skills:
- Efficient and effective work practice: demonstrate ability to work efficiently to deadlines.
- Clear organisation of information: show efficiency in the organisation of large amounts of complex information and the ability to identify, describe and analyse the key features of the information.
- Organisation and communication: demonstrate ability to use evidence to develop logical and clear arguments; show aptitude for the effective use of information in a direct and appropriate way.
- Enterprising thinking: Demonstrate ability to think and argue in novel and enterprising ways, to display originality of thought and argument and the ability to clearly support arguments in innovative ways.

Assessment

Essay (50%), Project (50%)