sow941 - Politics and Organisations

The module provides students with advanced theoretical concepts and research designs for analysing political organisations. After completing the module, students have deepened their knowledge of organisations in politics and party politics. Students can apply these theoretical and methodological skills to identify relevant research questions and analyse the current challenges organisations face in party politics.

The module consists of two thematically complementary seminars.

Political systems are made up of institutions and organizations, from government to parliaments and parties. These seminars focus on the interaction between parties and the positions they fill in government. The first seminar gives after a broader introduction to comparative politics, after which we shed light on core concepts that shape these organizations, such as representation, candidate nomination and collective decision making. Students thereby get in touch with different theoretical concepts and research designs.

The second seminar deals with organisations and parties from an empirical perspective, presenting case studies and data to analyze in practice. We extend the literature focused first seminar by adding more formal analytical frameworks and access to understanding and replicating empirical results. 

• Caramani, D. (Ed.). (2017). Comparative Politics. Oxford University.Press.
• Clark, W. R., Golder, M., & Golder, S. N. (2017). Principles of comparative politics. CQ Press.
• Schlesinger, J. A. (1984). On the theory of party organization. The Journal of Politics, 46(2), 369-400.
• Greene, Zachary, and Matthias Haber. Leadership competition and disagreement at party national congresses. British Journal of Political Science 46.3 (2016): 611-632.

Portfolio (work must be completed in both seminars) consisting of the writing of a literature review/research design in the one seminar and presentation in the other seminar