Political Science

This course examines transitional justice measures implemented in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to face the grave human rights violations committed during the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s, and their relationship with the transition to democracy in these countries between 1983 and 2014. 

This course analyzes how policy making and artificial intelligence may be intertwined in a dynamic that has major impacts on the definition of public service itself. It investigates the integration of artificial intelligence related tools: how they are likely to affect policy making processes, whether they will change the relationship between the administration and citizens, and if they enable the delivery of new public services. The course emphasizes the adoption of artificial intelligence in a historical context of the progressive adoption of technologies, from traditional bureaucracies to essentially digital governance and e-bureaucratic forms. It focuses on the study of major artificial intelligence technologies and their potential uses, the value of data as a resource and product of administrations, as well as data ethics. The course analyzes use cases of artificial intelligence adoption in major policies such as health, education, bureaucracies, security, and climate change mitigation in the context of their implementation, from international to citizen-related approaches. It critically assesses the relationship between public-based policies and the creation of public value; the potential leverages, risks, or barriers; and the geopolitics of public artificial intelligence. Finally, the course develops a critical approach on how not only public agents, but also citizens, have major roles to play in the adoption of these technologies.

This course analyzes Kim Jong Un’s summit diplomacy with South Korea and the United States as an approach to simultaneously pursue security and economic development. North Korea`s nuclear diplomacy with regard to the United States will be the core part of this course. The first half of the course focuses on Kremlinology, leadership analysis, and the succession of the Kim dynasty. In the latter half, historical reviews on North Korea`s foreign policy during the Cold War period as well as post-Cold War period will demonstrate how North Korea`s threat perception influences its provocative foreign policy. Then, the course moves to discuss influences of surrounding countries, namely, China, Japan, and Russia. Lastly, class discussions will be held on the future of North Korea, unification, and inter-Korean relations.

This course focuses on ethical and philosophical approaches to democracy. It introduces students to major theories of democracy, as well as major critiques of democracy. 

The course familiarizes students with theoretical perspectives that explain the emergence and change of modern welfare states. To this end, the course typically outlines the development of European welfare states, and discusses the emergence of different types of welfare states. The course usually covers core theoretical approaches to understand welfare state politics, which may include economic models of inequality and redistribution, party politics and public opinion, the influence of political institutions, and the role of immigration, race, and gender. The course may also include case studies of specific policy fields or social policy reforms, such as the Universal Credit reforms in the United Kingdom. Students learn a set of theoretical tools that help them understand past, present, and future debates about social policy and the welfare state, and evaluate social policies in a comparative perspective.

This course introduces the study of educational inequality and education policy. It begins by reviewing the main goals, achievements, and outstanding challenges in education policy at the beginning of the 21st century. Specifically, it takes a historical perspective to review the progress made with respect to providing education to large parts of the world's population and with respect to reducing gender inequality in education. The course then turns to one key policy challenge of the early 21st century: reducing the inequalities in education between individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds. It examines the social processes that may account for these educational inequalities and discusses whether and how different policies can address them.

This course investigates the cosmopolitan ideal in academic discourse as well as in everyday political and social life. It explores cosmopolitanism in relation to debates in political theory and international relations as well as dynamics surrounding international migration, transnational advocacy networks, and global governance. The course also examines the cosmopolitan perspective in relation to key global issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic, global climate change, economic inequality, nuclear proliferation and the challenges posed by resurgent nationalism and authoritarian populism.

This course provides an overview of the goals institutional actors are pursuing when they design and reform an electoral system. It discusses conceptual dimensions and criteria for categorizing and comparing electoral systems and studies specific national cases to assess the impact of electoral laws on party systems, legislator behavior, and interbranch relations. The course explores both aspects of intraparty and interparty politics. After completing a long series of case studies, it adopts a comparative perspective to discuss recent scholarly research in this field. 

Recent years have seen a debate about the waning of war, though for millions of people around the world, wars and violence are part of their everyday lives - with implications far beyond the war-torn states’ borders. This course introduces students to major trends in warfare (types of wars, the actors engaged in wars, targets in wars, funding of warfare, technology of warfare), theories explaining these trends, the relationship between warfare and state-building, and ethical questions concerning how wars are fought. The course first looks at major concepts and theories, and then moves on to examine contemporary debates and issue areas such as international law, international institutions such as the UN Security Council and NATO, civil wars and peacekeeping, climate-conflict nexus, weapons of mass destruction, cyber warfare, new technology, future weapons, and killer robots.  

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course provides an understanding of key issues involved in environmental politics, from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Environmental issues are critically discussed, with particular reference to the role and responsibilities of great powers in the international politics of climate change, power inequality, and the global ecological crisis. Students acquire and learn: 1) the essential conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools necessary to tackle and understand environmental issues; 2) knowledge regarding the major interpretations of environmental security; 3) basic knowledge about major environmental powers (United States, China, European Union, India, Brazil, Russia) and international institutions and issue areas (UN Security Council, multilateral environmental agreements, international climate leadership, coal politics); and 4) how to apply the acquired tools to the analysis of concrete cases.