DSPO 25A32 - Western party democracy in crisis

Established democracies are experiencing challenges that amount to a crisis of representative party democracies. Multilevel governance, globalization, manifestations of political apathy, among other phenomena, are defying the way in which contemporary democracies work. At the same time the terms of the political conflict in Western democracies are changing significantly due to economic, cultural, and political transformations. We live then through an era of changing political conflict while confronting a crisis of party democracy. The course aims to study the signs and causes of party democracy crisis and of the changing political conflict analysing: • The transformation of the political conflict transformation and the attitudinal change behind it • The party systems change and the rise of new challenger, populist and radical right parties • Changes in the patterns of political behaviour • Globalisation, the increase in inequality and their political consequences • The increase in polarisation • The crisis of parties and of party government and occurrences of democratic backsliding

Luis RAMIRO

Séminaire

English

Having done an introductory course to Political Science or Political Analysis.

Autumn 2021-2022

The course includes 12 sessions. the sessions will start with an introduction to the topic of that week by the professor followed then by students' presentations of specific readings for each session. The evaluation will be done through: - A seminar presentation of a reading (30% of the final mark). - Seminar discussion (10% of the final mark). - A take-home exam consisting in writing a short essay of 4.000 words (60% of the final mark).