This course focuses on empirical analyses of polarization in today’s democracies. Students will be introduced to the central concepts of political polarization, and contemporary theories for the emergence and consequences of increasing societal tension.
This class combines institutional and behavioral approaches to look at polarization among party positions, political elites, and the broader society. The geographic focus will be on established democracies in Europe and the US. We start off with discussing the concepts of polarization in empirical social science and continue to review contemporary research in the field of comparative political behaviour. We then investigate different mechanisms that could explain rises in polarization, before looking at its consequences for a range of relevant outcomes.
Students should be familiar with statistical analysis to get an insight into contemporary theory-guided empirical research. A majority of the texts we discuss in class use quantitative methods to ground theoretical arguments in data. Participants of the course should prepare a presentation and write an empirical research design paper to receive full credit. |
