Political Science

This course shows that Africa is a productive laboratory for students and researchers in international relations and security studies as the region gathers some of the most enduring interlinked political rivalries within the international system. It challenges and sometimes clarifies powerful concepts developed by the field (hegemonic stability, regional security complex, failed states, small state, sovereignty). It contrasts arguments that international relations focuses on the politics of powerful states and that, as a consequence, there is an African exceptionalism which explains the field’s inability to accurately address African experiences. The course examines how Africa has often been neglected by the different theoretical approaches to international relations and more generally by the discipline, demonstrating that the Horn of Africa is pertinent not only for area specialists but also constitutes a remarkable ground for fieldwork and theory-testing of both old and new approaches. 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. The course aims to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of the complex phenomenon of climate change, as well as an understanding of the main interdependencies between the economic and political aspects and the local, supranational, and global dimensions. At the end of the course, students are able to: a) identify the main consequences on some areas of the economy, society, and international politics; b) describe the origins and evolution of international agreements and programs aimed at addressing the problem of climate change; c) understand the impact of climate change on different regions/areas of the world; and d) critically analyze the effects of climate change on political and economic development, with particular attention to the impact on poverty. Course contents include: an introduction to development and climate change; observed and projected impacts of climate change; climate change diplomacy: history and development of international climate change agreements; climate change mitigation; vulnerability to climate change and adaptation; climate action in the context of the Sustainable Development Agenda; and climate justice and equity: intergenerational and gender perspectives.

This survey course is an introduction to the history of Latin America in the 20th century. Students examine processes common to the region, the experiences of specific countries, and Latin America’s relations with the rest of the world. Beyond this, like Hobsbawm, the course considers how Latin America can help us think about the history of wider world.

This course studies European democratic developments in the twentieth century by considering the fluctuating nature of democracy as a fundamentally historical phenomenon, whose reputation has been judged in changing ways over time. It develops a historically grounded and argued understanding of the question of changes in democracy.

This course follows the approach that citizens are ‘predictably irrational’ (Ariely 2008). This model of human behavior has consequences for how governments can and should steer society. A behavioral approach to government steering such as ‘nudging’ is explored in this course. Students explore what it means to take a behavioral approach to public administration, how it differs from traditional policy, and to what extent has a behavioral approach been taken up by governments already, and learn about opportunities and pitfalls of a behavioral approach. Questions about whether a behavioral approach is effective, appropriate, and ethical are discussed. Finally, the course explicitly studies the policy process that leads to ‘behavioral’ policies including the other actors, such as interest groups, and contextual factors, such as institutions, rules, and norms that influence this process.  Theoretical knowledge, practical examples, guest lectures, field trips, discussions, debates, and presentations are used.

This course is designed to introduce students to the basic drivers of international relations in the modern age from the Antiquities, namely, the causes of war and peace through theoretical and historical examination of major conflicts up to the 21st century.

Located at the intersection between economics and political science, political economy as a field explores a great variety of issues arising from interactions between economic and political arenas. This course is designed to introduce to students the conceptual tools developed by political economists for assessing the role politics plays in economic activities and vice versa. Specifically, the course investigates the following topics:

• Social Networks 
• Historical Political Economy 
• Institutional Complementarity 
• Cognitive Political Economy 
• Public Debt 
• Regime Transitions 
• Institutional Choices 
• Natural Resource Curse 
• Political Polarization 

While the list is by no means exhaustive, the topics included are nonetheless well established in the literature and are very useful for students to learn the necessary analytic skills from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The ultimate goal of the course is to enable students to think independently and formulate their own views as a political economist.

This course provides an introduction to the politics of the Middle East. This includes an analysis of the growth and nature of the state in the Middle East; the prevalence of authoritarianism, neo-patrimonialism and processes towards democratization: the salience of Arab nationalism and Islamism: dynamics of conflict and revolution in the region; and the rise of Islamism.

This course provides an overview of foreign policy cases on China, Japan, Canada, and ASEAN from comparative perspectives. It introduces the internal and external factors that shape foreign policies and discusses the contemporary debates on these foreign policies.