Class Comparative Policy

Comparative Politics represents a field of study that is characterized by the comparative nature of its approaches and the diversity of qualitative and quantitative methods for dealing with different topics. Since John Stuart Mill's proposition of similarity and difference methods, comparative politics has been refined to delve into a few cases or explore relationships between variables in a large number of cases. More recently, there has been a tendency to use mixed methods in the same study. In addition to methodological diversity, comparative politics covers a wide range of topics, having in common the concern to compare case studies

.Module 1- Comparative Policy: theoretical and methodological concepts

1. Theoretical Aspects

     1.1 Comparative Policy Definition

     1.2. The Substance of Comparative Politics

     1.3 The relevance of Comparative Politics

     1.4  The use of theory in Comparative Politics

2. Methodological Aspects

     2.1 The comparative method

     2.2 The role of variables

     2.3 Comparing cases and selection of variables

     2.4 Limitations of the Comparative Method

Module 2: Comparative Policy: Scope of analysis

1. The Historical Context

     1.1 Democracies

     1.2 Authoritarian regimes

2. Structures and Institutions

     2.1 Governments

     2.2 Electoral Systems

     2.3 Multilevel Systems

3 Actors and Processes

     3.1 Party systems

     3.2 Political Participation

     3.3 Political Communication

4 Beyond the Nation State

     4.1 European Integration

     4.2 Globalization

In the oral presentations, students have to produce critical reports on the performance and content of their colleagues' work.

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