30200 - POLITICAL SCIENCE
CLEAM - CLEF - CLEACC - BESS-CLES - BIEMF
Course taught in English
Go to class group/s: 31
The course provides the main analytical tools needed to understand the nature of politics and political behavior in both national and international contexts. In the first part the course addresses issues such as the evolution of political science, the description of the main features of various political regimes (democratic, authoritarian, totalitarian) and the role of power relations in contemporary democracies. Furthermore, public institutions, political actors and decision making processes are discussed using political science methodological tools and analytical approaches. In the second part, the main features of the Italian political system are analyzed.
- What is politics?
- Analysing power: sources and types of power
- Political regimes: democracy, authoritarianism and totalitarianism
- The actors of democracy: political parties, interest groups
- The institutions of democracy: executive-legislative power relations
- The rules of democracy: decision making and electoral process
- The "levels" of democracy: between local and global
Second part
This second part analyses the main characteristics of the Italian political system: history, empirical evidence and interpretation.
- Evolution of the Italian political system
- Recent trends: change or continuity?
- You may take two partials. In this case, the exam is considered as passed only if in both partials the grade is at least 18/30.
- You may take a general exam
- R. HAGUE, M. HARROP, Comparative Government and Politics. An introduction, Houndmills-Basingstroke: Macmillan, 2010
- M. COTTA, L. VERZICHELLI, Political Institutions in Italy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007