GRADUATE
COURSES
States, Nations, Democracies
This course surveys major topics and theoretical contributions in the
construction of political order, the choice of constitutional regimes and the
sources of citizens’ compliance. The courses examines: the formation and
development of the modern state; democracy; authoritarianism; revolution and
political stability; legitimacy and compliance; nationalism; and macro theories
of political change. With the explicit goal of exploring how research in
comparative politics should be pursued in the future,
each session assigns readings from both traditional macrohistorical
and qualitative research and more recent analytical models.
Syllabus
Fall 2023
Syllabus
Fall 2019
Politics of Growth and Redistribution: Comparative Political Economy
This course is designed to survey
and discuss the political and institutional factors underlying cross-national
variation in economic performance. The course is structured
around the following issues or questions: (1) why do countries differ so much
in their level of economic development?; (2) which are the different paths
through which countries have modernized economically?; (3) what is the impact
of elections, parties and domestic institutions on the management of the
economy?; (4) to what extent are democracy and capitalism?; and (5) in what
ways does the international economy shape state autonomy and the size of
welfare states? The scope of the course is analytical in its theoretical
perspective and comparative from a methodological point of view.
Syllabus
Fall 2020
Introduction to Comparative Politics
This
course surveys major topics and theoretical contributions in the field of
comparative politics. The courses examines: the formation and development of
the modern state; democracy; authoritarianism; revolution and political
stability; nationalism; voters and parties, constitutional arrangements and
their effects and macro theories of political change. With the explicit goal of
exploring how research in comparative politics should be pursued in the future,
each session assigns readings from both traditional macrohistorical
and qualitative research and more recent analytical models.
Syllabus
Fall 2022
European Political Development (Graduate Course)
(Winter 2003)
This course surveys some of the existing major empirical debates and
theoretical contributions on the formation and evolution of European political
institutions. It addresses the following issues: the rise of the modern state;
the formation of nations and contemporary nationalism; the emergence of
democracies; the crisis of the interwar period; the creation of mass parties
and union movements at the turn of the 20th century and their evolution in the
postwar decades; and the origins and constitutional development of the European
Union. The course has the goal of reading central historical research to
formulate broad comparative theoretical insights about the topics at hand.
Enrolment is limited to 15 students. Doctoral students will be
given priority.
Syllabus
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
Making Democracy Work (Fall 2020)
Politics in democratic countries
is today in a state of turmoil. Trust in national institutions has reached a historical
low. In advanced industrial economies, slightly over one in three people
expresses confidence in their governments. Only 20 percent of Americans think
that politicians care about their opinions – a number sharply down from almost
four in five in the late 1950s. In France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the
proportion is even lower, at around 10 to 15 percent. In turn, such a wave of
disaffection has given way to growing disengagement from traditional party
politics. In Western Europe, electoral abstention has doubled since the 1970s,
mainly among the youngest cohorts. Amongst those electors that vote, close to
one quarter are casting their ballots for far right and far left parties.
Populist and nationalist alliances now govern a handful of European countries.
In a context of increasingly polarized politics, in 2016 close to half of
American voters elected a president that promised to remake the international
system of global cooperation and open economies that the United States designed
and built after World War Two.
This seminar will examine the performance and overall health
of our democratic institutions. In particular, we will examine the following
questions: 1/ How do representation and representative
institutions work in democratic regimes? 2/ How do
politicians and parties compete in elections? 3/ Which
are the sources of the critical trends (populist, political alienation, etc.)
we are witnessing today? 4/ How well informed are
citizens? Does it matter for democracy? 5/ What is
(and should be) the relationship between technical knowledge (generated by
economists, the medical profession, etc.) and democratic decision-making? 6/ Why and how do countries democratize and remain democratic? 5/ Does globalization constrain democratic rule?
Syllabus
Democratic Capitalism at a Crossroads (Junior Seminar) (Fall 2018)
Nineteenth-century thinkers, from
Karl Marx to British conservative politicians and publicists, thought that
democracy and universal suffrage were incompatible with capitalism and private
property. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, the advanced
industrial world witnessed the political triumph of democratic capitalism – the
almost generalized popular support for both free markets and representative
elections, underpinned by the construction of a generous welfare state. Today,
globalization, fast technological change, and growing inequality seem to be
threatening the social compact of what some authors call the golden age of
(twentieth-century) capitalism.
This seminar will explore the
conditions that made (make) possible the conciliation of democracy (and its
emphasis on equality) and capitalism (and its potential role in generating
economic inequalities). More specifically, it will look at the nature of
production (i.e, the relationship between machines
and labor), employment and wages under three phases of capitalism: nineteenth-century
Manchester capitalism; twentieth-century Detroit capitalism;
and twenty-first-century Silicon-Valley capitalism.
In particular, we will devote
a substantial fraction of the seminar to examine the technological innovations
(the creation of true machine intelligence and the connection of all humans via
a common digital network) that have taken place since the 1970s and their
economic consequences in terms of employment change, wage stagnation and
inequality. We will then discuss their actual and potential political
implications: higher ideological polarization; populism;
the unravelling of democracy.
The seminar will combine
academic research with normative think-pieces and a
discussion of (a diverse set of) policy strategies to deal with those changes.
Syllabus
Comparative Political Economy (Undergraduate Course)
(Spring 2004)
What part does the state play in the economy? Why do different countries
choose different economic strategies? Do these different economic policies
affect the economy successfully? Can governments shape the economy according to
their political preferences? Or are they constrained by any 'exogenous' forces?
Finally, can they pursue economic policies which, satisfactory enough to their
electorates, ensure their reelection?
This course attempts to address these questions. The first part of the
course explores why economic development has been elusive in most of the globe.
After showing the limitations of purely economic models of growth, it considers
how political institutions, political regimes, societal interests, the
distribution of assets and the inheritance of colonialism shape growth rates.
The second part of the courses examines why and how the share of the state in
the economy has risen steadily in the developed world. This parts pays special
attention to differences in the internal structure of public spending between
the United States and Europe and considers the consequences of the growth of
the welfare state. The third part looks at the role which
political parties and the structure of labor markets may have on
economic policy-making and on the cyclical evolution of unemployment and
inflation. The course closes with an overview of the impact of globalization on
the domestic economy.
Syllabus
Government and Politics of Western Europe (Undergraduate
Course) (Last time taught: Winter 1999)
An introduction to the comparative politics of Western European democracies.
Its goal is to explore the structure of Western European party systems, the
factors that explain voting patterns among European electorates, and the
institutional framework (the electoral system, the role of parliament and
executives, the formation of governments) of European democracies and the
possible role of ‘civic culture’ in explaining successful democratic
governance.
Although the course pays special attention to the particular traits of
several countries (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the Scandinavian
countries), it is explicitly designed to
determine the set of systematic relationships that may exist between certain
political and socioeconomic variables. Examples of these
relationship are the following: Do electoral systems affect the number of
parties in parliament? Do working- class voters vote for socialists parties?
Does the number of parties in Parliament determine the stability of governments and the economic performance of European
countries? The whole sample of European nations is then used to answer these
questions and to check the plausibility of the theoretical relationships
developed in the literature (some pointed
references to the US system will be made).
Syllabus