Political Science

The teaching integrates the multidisciplinary training of the degree course with the political science skills necessary to analyse and interpret the institutional processes and behaviour of political actors in Western representative democracies, autocracies and supranational entities in a multi-level perspective. In this perspective, it provides students with a set of analytical, methodological and interpretative skills for the knowledge, understanding and analysis of contemporary political phenomena and political systems, with particular reference to the main democratic regimes of the Western world (European democracies, North American democracy and the European Union as a new political and institutional model of composite democracy) and other forms of non-democratic regimes. The study will include the analysis of: a) the constitutive foundations of any political system, whether democratic or autocratic; b) the main institutions and the most important actors of contemporary representative democracies, with particular reference to the Italian case; c) the European Union as a supranational entity and composite democracy, with particular regard to its place in the global scenario and the context of international relations.

By the end of the course, the student will have acquired a set of analytical, methodological and interpretative skills relating to the functioning of contemporary political systems, both democratic and non-democratic, as well as supranational institutions such as the European Union, will be familiar with the Italian political system also from a comparative point of view, and will be able to analyse political phenomena in their various manifestations at national level and in a multi-level perspective attentive to the different institutional contexts. Active participation in the lectures, together with the study of the materials, will also enable the student to develop the ability to proceed autonomously to the analysis of a political system, its main actors and its fundamental processes and to submit the results of his/her analyses in an accessible and at the same time rigorous form to interlocutors of various kinds, specialists and non-specialists alike.