Course Description: The course aims at providing students with a broad overview of comparative politics, as well as a deeper understanding of particular European countries, actors, and institutions in order to encourage critical thinking about key trends and controversies. The course touches on themes in contemporary European politics such as political parties and party systems, electoral systems, legislatures and executives, questions of identity and multiculturalism, federalism, and welfare politics.
Methodology: Lectures with the support of power point presentations. Discussion sessions based on designated readings.
Language of presentation: English
Required work: The readings listed for a particular session must be completed before coming to class that day. A reading pack will be available one week before the first session of the course.
Form of assessment:
Class participation: 15%
Midterm exam: 25%
Research paper: 25%
Final exam: 35%
Content:
Session 1. Introduction
Introduction to the course: objectives, methodology, contents and organization. Rapid oral quiz about the EU.
Sessions 2 and 3. Parties and party systems
Reading:
Alan Ware, Political Parties and Party Systems, Oxford University Press, 2001, chapter 5.
Richard Katz. and Peter Mair (1995). “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Cartel Party”, Party Politics 1:1-28.
Recommended:
Andrew Krouwel (2006). “Party Models”, in Richard S. Katz and William Crotty (eds) Handbook of political parties. London: Sage.
Michael Gallagher, Michael Laver and Peter Mair (2005). Representative Government in Modern Europe. London: McGraw-Hill (2nd Edition), chapter 8 (230-260).
Session 4. Elections and electoral systems
Reading:
Lijphart, Arendt (1999). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press (Chapters 7 and 9).
Recommended:
Michael Gallagher, Michael Laver and Peter Mair (2005). Representative Government in Modern Europe. London: McGraw-Hill (2nd Edition), chapter 11 (340-377).
Session 5. Parliamentary governments
Reading:
Lijphart, Arend. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999 (Chapters 5 and 6).
Recommended:
Mikko Matila and Tapio Raunio (2004). “Does Winning Pay? Electoral Success and Government Formation in Fifteen West European Countries”, European Journal of Political Research 43 (2): 263-85.
Tim Bale (2005), “Governments and Parliaments: A Long Way from Equality”, European Politics. A comparative introduction. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, Chapter 4.
Session 6 and 7. Party cleavages and electoral change
Reading:
Michael Gallagher, Michael Laver and Peter Mair (2005). Representative Government in Modern Europe. London: McGraw-Hill (2nd Edition), Chapters 9-10 (263-303).
Recommended:
Wattenberg, M.P (2000). “The Decline of Party Mobilization”, in R. Dalton and W. Wattenberg. (eds.), Parties Without Partisans. Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Webb, P. (2002). “Introduction: Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies”, in P. Webb, D. Farrell, and I. Holliday, Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Session 8. Green and radical politics
Reading:
Ferdinand Muller Rommel and Thomas Poguntke (1995). New Politics. Aldershot Dartmouth.
Recommended:
Ronald Inglehart (1987). “'Value Change in Industrial Societies”, American Political Science Review 81 (4): 1289 1303.
Jon Burchell (2002). “Evolving or Conforming? Assessing Organisational Reform within European Green Parties”, West European Politics 24 (3): 113-134.
Session 9. Extremist challenges to the existing political order
Reading:
Matt Golder. 2003. “Explaining Variation in the Success of Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe.” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 36, 432-66.
William M. Downs (2002). “How Effective Is the Cordon Sanitaire? Lessons from Efforts to Contain the Far Right in Belgium, France, Denmark and Norway,” Journal of Conflict and Violence Research 4 (1): 32-51.
[http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/ikg/jkg/1-2002/downs.pdf]
Recommended:
Tim Bale (2003). “Cinderella and her ugly sisters: the mainstream and extreme right in Europe's bipolarising party systems”, West European Politics 26 (3): 67-90.
Marc Swyngedouw and Giles Ivaldi (2002). “The Extreme Right Utopia in Belgium and France: The Ideology of the Flemish Vlaams Blok and the French National Front”' West European Politics 24 (3): 1-22.
Session 10. Euro-parties
Reading:
Knut Heidar (2003). “Parties and Cleavages in the European Political Space”. Working Paper 03/07, Advanced Research on the Europeanisation of the Nation-State, Oslo, Norway (available at: http://www.arena.uio.no/publications/wp03_7.pdf)
Recommended:
Hix, Simon 2002: “Parties at the European Level”, in Webb, Paul, David M. Farrell and Ian Holliday, eds., Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Ladrecht, Robert (2002): “Europeization of Political Parties: Towards a Framework for Analysis”, Party Politics 8: 389-404.
Session 11. Mid-term exam
Session 12. Territorial politics in Europe: nations, states and regional parties
Reading:
Heller, William B. (2002). “Regional Parties and National Politics in Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 35 (6): 657-685.
Recommended:
Lisbet Hooghe and Gary Marks (2003). “Unraveling the Central State, But How? Types of Multi-Level Governance.” American Political Science Review 97 (2): 233-243.
Michael Keating (2006). “Territorial Politics in Europe”, in Sedelmeier, Ulrich; Heywood, P.; Jones, E.; Rhodes, M (eds.). Developments in European Politics. London: Palgrave, pp. 136-154.
Session 13. The reinvention of European social democracy
Reading:
Steve Bastow and James Martin (2003). Third Way Discourse European Ideologies in the Twentieth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
.
Recommended:
Kersbergen, Kees van (2003). “The Politics and Political Economy of Social Democracy”. Acta Política 38: 255-273.
Herbert Kitschelt (1994). The Transformation of European Social Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Session 14. European Welfare States
Reading:
A.Hemerijck, M.Keune & M.Rhodes (2006). “European Welfare States: Diversity, Challenges and Reforms”, in Sedelmeier, Ulrich; Heywood, P.; Jones, E.; Rhodes, M (eds.). Developments in European Politics. London: Palgrave, pp. 259-79.
Recommended:
John D. Stephens, Evelyn Huber, and Leonard Ray (1999). “The Welfare State in Hard Times,” in Herbert Kitschelt et al., eds., Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 164-193.
Gøsta Esping-Andersen (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 1-34, 221-229.
Session 15. Immigration and accommodation politics in comparative perspective
Reading:
Paul White (1998). “Ethnicity, Racialization and Citizenship as Divisive Elements in Europe’, in Hudson, R & A.Williams (eds), Divided Europe. London: Sage, Chapter 9.
Recommended:
Marc Morjé Howard (2005). “Variation in Dual Citizenship Policies in the Countries of the EU”, International Migration Review 39 (3): 697-720.
J. Christopher Soper and Joel Fetzer (2003). “Explaining the Accommodation of Muslim Religious Practices in France, Britain, and Germany”, French Politics 1: 39-59.
Session 16. The feminization of politics
Reading:
Caul, Miki (2001). “Political Parties and the Adoption of Candidate Gender Quotas: A Cross-National Analysis”, Journal of Politics 63: 1214-29.
Recommended:
Lovenduski, Joni (2005). Feminizing Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Session 17. Interest groups
Reading:
Tim Bale (2005), chapter 5: “Pressure politics: civil society, organized interests and new social movement”, European Politics. A comparative introduction. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Recommended:
Marks, Gary and Steenbergen, Marco (2002). “Understanding Political Contestation in the European Union”, Comparative Political Studies 35: 879-892.
Jan W. Deth, José Ramón Montero and Anders Westholm (2007). Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies. A Comparative Analysis. New York: Routledge.
Session 18. Citizen support for the EU
Reading:
Lisbet Hooghe, and Gary Marks, and Carole Wilson (2002). “Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration?”, Comparative Political Studies 35(8): 965-989.
Recommended:
Lisbet Hooghe, and Gary Marks (2003). “Europe Divided? Elites vs. Public Opinion on European Integration” European Union Politics 4 (3): 281-305.
Session 19. The most recent election
Explore media reporting of one of the last national elections held in election. Each of you will have a different perspective to represent. Interpret the results.
1. Where is your party weakest or strongest a. geographically, b. socially?
2. Which of the other parties seem to be ripest for making gains in the future?
3. Do you need a change of leadership?
4. What are the most difficult issues your party faces?
Session 20. Student presentation of research papers
Session 21. Final (written) exam
Session 22
General conclusions to be derived collectively by students.
Comments on the exam. Final grades.
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