Political Science

This course provides a first introduction to the field of political economy and the geopolitics of natural resources. It is based on rich literature from political philosophy, economics, comparative politics, and international relations. The period of analysis focuses on the post-war era and does not concentrate on any particular region. However, the specific characteristics of different regions or countries are discussed, including Latin America, Russia, Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa region.

The course focuses on the scientific study of elections and voting behavior in modern democracies. It examines in detail the act of voting in contemporary democracies (mostly Western but also non-Western democracies). The topics covered include how voters form preferences for parties/candidates, how they translate these preferences into a vote (or an abstention), and how they react to electoral campaigns and the state of the economy. It also covers how parties decide upon their electoral program, and how this affects their electoral performance. The course develops skills to actively read, fully understand, and critically appraise the scientific literature on elections; mobilize and articulate this scientific literature on elections to form an informed judgement about the state of elections in contemporary democracies and analyze new elections; and independently catch up with the latest developments of the scientific literature about elections. 

This course explores the complex relationship between pluralism and community. This course defines pluralism as the existence of multiple races, ethnicities, cultural groups, religions, factional interests, political persuasions, etc. in society.  “Community” in this course refers to the existence of what we can broadly call a ‘sense of togetherness’ among members of society.   

Can pluralism and community exist side-by-side? The course explores three broad responses to this question. First, it considers perspectives that maintain to varying degrees that pluralism and community are compatible. Second, it considers perspectives that cast doubt on the compatibility of pluralism and community.  Third, the course considers perspectives that share the skepticism of the second broad response, but for opposing reasons.   

This course explores theories and concepts of political corruption. It helps students develop an understanding of political corruption with reference to the models and analytical frameworks offered by various social science disciplines. 

This course offers a study of the main intellectual traditions and paradigms of International Relations from the interwar era to the first half of the Cold War, including idealism, realism, the English school, neorealism, and institutional liberalism, among others. 

While questioning the relevance of the concept of the "Iranian world," this course provides fundamental knowledge in the political sociology of contemporary Iran and Afghanistan, from a comparative perspective. The course considers together the political, economic, and cultural developments of these two states over a long period, from the fall of Isfahan in 1722, under the blows of an Afghan invasion, to the fall of Kabul in 2021, via the Anglo-Persian war of Herat in 1856-1857 and the concomitant upheavals of 1978 and 1979. Methods of comparative politics are combined with those of connected history to better understand the "Iranian world" as a whole, as well as each of its two major components, highlighting their differences as much as their similarities. The comparative study of Islamic currents of thought in the two countries forms an important part of this course. This includes a focus on the Arab world, as well as the Indian subcontinent. Finally, while the course focuses on Iran and Afghanistan, it also includes Tajikistan, the only other state where Persian is the official language. The course includes a visit to the Guimet Museum.

In the early 21st century, there were three techno-economic and strategic cores—Europe, North America, and East Asia, with East Asia being the fastest growing and most dynamic. Although the three regions are of approximately equal economic size, East Asia has been surging forward. East Asia includes China, the world's fastest growing continental economy and second largest economy; Japan, the third largest economy, the second largest source of global capital, and technological leader; South Korea, a technological leader, and Southeast Asia. East Asia is also becoming increasingly important militarily. East Asian strategic issues affect even geographically distant great power relations, including the trans-Atlantic relationship. 

This course focuses on the international relations of this crucial region. It begins by tracing the legacy of the Sino-Centric tributary system, a relatively hierarchical international relations system quite different from the anarchical Westphalian system. Then, it considers the impact of Western Imperialism; the rise and fall of Japanese Imperialism, and the Cold War. The remainder of the course focuses on the post-Cold War decade of the 1990s; the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98; the rise of regional multilateral institutions; the influence of historical memory on regional politics; East Asia under unipolarity; the rise of China and its complex relations with Japan and the US; China -Japan relations, and more generally, Asia’s relationship with Europe. The course concludes by considering several scenarios for Asian regional politics and this region's place in, and impact on, the global system over the next decades.

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 provides an overview of the main actors and institutions of the Italian political system. The course analyses the function of major institutions (such as the parliament, government, and constitutional court) and interprets the institutional and political changes of recent decades. The course offers conceptual tools for framing and interpreting the many dimensions of the Italian political system. A first brief history examines the construction of the unified state, and the continuities and discontinuities between the liberal, Fascist, and democratic republican regimes. The course then focuses on the reasons for and consequences of the transition from the first to the second republic. This is followed by study of the electoral arena and evolution of the party system in parallel with discussion of Italian political culture. The latter part of the course, in the form of seminars, is dedicated to the topic of populism and the link between ethnos (community identity) and democratic values.

This course introduces a number of approaches to understanding the relationship between politics and economics, the state, and markets. The course focuses on different perspectives on, and key concepts in, political economy, as emphasized or challenged in major works in the field. The themes which the course looks at include (i) the role of class and interests, (ii) culture and the economy, (iii) the embeddedness of markets, (iv) markets versus hierarchy, (v) the role of institutions, and (vi) the distribution of capital. Within each theme, students discuss key contributions to the different approaches, including works by Smith, Marx, Weber, Keynes, Polanyi, Hayek, Olson, Ostrom, and Piketty. 

This course covers the development of public administrations during the 18th and 19th centuries. It addresses the ways in which government impresses political will onto the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, and how, inversely, society shapes government. It is both a course in history and public law. The course draws attention to the centuries of social evolution and legal tinkering behind many habitual features of our contemporary “bureaucratic” administrations. It explores several administrative systems across the Atlantic and Europe, namely that of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. Each session begins with the commentary of a visual document relating to aspects of a period's daily life containing cues to the legal and institutional context. The rest of the session consists of a brief lecture and a primary sources discussion. Sources are provided in a reader and mostly consist of historical legal documents.