Political Institutions and Decision-Making

A course aimed at giving analytical, methodological and interpretative skills for knowledge, understanding and analysis of political decision
making in institutional arena (parliament, government, party system), focusing in particular on the Italian political system and its evolution over time

a) Knowledge and Understanding: at the end of the course, the student will have got a set of analytical, methodological and interpretative skills, related to the contents and the outcomes of decision making in the main institutional arenas of a democratic polity. From a methodological point of view, these competences will be framed in a systematic knowledge of some useful tools to analyze and diagnose decision-making in political institutions.
b) Applying Knowledge and Learning Skills: this toolkit should allow the student to make analysis of the main decision-making processes concerning with the functioning of a political system, mainly with regards to the Italian political system. The student will learn to examine parties interaction, law making, parliament and government relations, parties' strategies in government coalitions, government decision making, between institutional level and leadership effects. The understanding of these processes will be combined with a relatively good knowledge of the functioning of the Italian political system.

c) Communication Skills: presentation and discussion of case studies in classroom, should allow the student learning to communicate contents and results of the analysis of a given political decision-making to several interlocutors, specialists and non-specialists ones.