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Lehrende: Prof. Christian Adam
Veranstaltungsart:
Seminar
Orga-Einheit: Politics, Administration & International Relations
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
Politics & Institut
Semesterwochenstunden:
3
Credits:
6,0
Standort:
Campus der Zeppelin Universität
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
5 | 35
Prioritätsschema: Standard-Priorisierung
Inhalte:
Political phenomena like Trump, Brexit, the AfD and the rise of populism are analyzed as symptoms, results, or drivers of a crisis of democracy. This seminar focuses on long-term institutional processes within modern democracies that might offer explanations or at least a better understanding of these phenomena.
The first part of the seminar is dedicated to the evolution of key democratic institutions. In this context, we will discuss how the role, composition and competences of national parliaments have changed along with the distribution of power between the legislative and executive. Moreover, we will discuss the evolution of political parties. Despite diminishing numbers of party members and core constituents, they continue to fulfill very important functions within representative democracies. In addition, courts – particularly constitutional courts – attract the attention of political science. On the one hand, scholars describe an increasing legalization of politics. On the other hand, judicial decisions are suspected to be influenced by strategic and ideological concerns.
Quite obviously, the media landscape has also been subject to major changes characterized by an increasing level of fragmentation. Moreover, the increasing politicization of the media landscape not only reflects political bias in media reporting but also the fact that the media itself has become the subject of political controversy.
In the second part of the seminar, we will turn to four books, which try to bring these long-term trends together in order to offer explanations for the state of Western democracy. These books include a contribution by Norris and Inglehart (2019) who develop a cultural theory of populism. Second, we discuss "The Upswing" by Robert D. Putnam (2021) which systematically analyzes economic, cultural, and political data covering over 125 years to trace the sources of contemporary polarization. Third, we discuss "The Great Broadening" by Jones et al. (2019) who focus on the vast expansion of national policy-making in the 1960s and 1970s along with the profound consequences of this expansion for today's politics. Finally, we will discuss “Democracy for Realists” by Achen and Bartels (2016) who fundamentally challenge the idea that elections generate responsive governments. Each book will be presented and discussed by a group of students in class.
Lernziele:
Students
| know how several key political institutions have evolved over the last decades
| are familiar with theoretical arguments about the causes of these changes
| can discuss and critically reflect on the empirical sources of these causal claims
| are able to critically reflect on the theorized consequences of these institutional changes
Weitere Informationen zu den Prüfungsleistungen:
Proposal for Teaching Agreement: Students complete two mid-term tasks. They present a book report as part of a group of students in the last two sessions of the class (50%) and present a short response paper (1.500 words) to the required reading of one seminar session (50%).
Literatur:
The literature for the first block will be made available via ILIAS and the library.
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