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In this seminar, we will investigate how recent societal transformations affect democratic politics in advanced capitalist societies. With globalization, de-industrialization, and demographic change these societies have undergone fundamental transformations regarding citizens’ preferences and their interrelations during the last 30 years. These transformations have crucial implications for the politics of advanced democracies. New inter-governmental agendas to tackle issues such as climate change are formed while issues such as immigration rise on the domestic political agenda. Generally, we witness a transformation of the European political space through, for example, the emergence of successful radical right parties. The interplay of societal transformations with the dynamics of democratic policy-making forms the core of this two-term project seminar.
This winter term, the goal of the seminar is to provide students with the necessary tools to analyze the politics of post-industrial societies in their own research projects. Specifically, we will look at four central components of democratic politics: 1) With a focus on redistributive preferences, we will ask how are citizens’ policy preferences shaped and how have they changed over the past three decades? 2) What affects people’s voting decisions? 3) How are voters’ preferences represented in the democratic process? And how is this related to party competition? 4) Which role do political institutions such as electoral systems play for the translation of political preferences into policy outcomes?
We will look at these basic questions of comparative politics, political behavior, and political economy in relation to the above mentioned transformations. Has de-industrialization changed preferences? Has class-voting declined? Do political parties adapt to these transformations? In what way has the European political space transformed substantially? To what extent do these processes contribute to the explanation of different policy reactions in, for example, the fields of immigration or social security?
We will provide students with the necessary theoretical and methodological tools to investigate these questions in their own research projects. Methodologically, the winter semester, the focus here will be on research design and quantitative data analysis. We will review different research designs and regression analysis (linear and logistic) and discuss the challenges that applied researcher face with these techniques (e.g. the causal interpretation of results). While this should partly be a refresher for students with advanced methodological skills, it will constitute an opportunity for less advanced students to jump back on the train of quantitative data analysis. Still, students who wish to attend this class should have some basic knowledge of statistical analysis.
During the summer term, students will have the opportunity to focus on particular (possibly more advanced) methodological techniques that are necessary for them to conduct their own research projects successfully. Students will, thus, develop their own research project and work on its theoretical and methodological foundations during the first semester of this project seminar. They will then conduct their individual research projects and acquire more specific skills in the second semester.
The seminar will be taught in English. It is possible to hand in all “Leistungsnachweise” in German, too. |
