Comparative Political Economics. Regimes, Conflict and Development. 

Professor: Abel Escribà Folch 

This course focuses on the interrelationships existing between the three elements featured in the title of the course, namely, political regimes, development and conflict. To unpack those complex connections, we will examine the mechanisms by which political institutions affect economic performance and policies; how economic conditions (domestic and international), political institutions, and their interplay influence a number of key political events; and how political institutions and conflict may emerge. The course does so by surveying the leading contemporary research on the main topics in the field of comparative politics and political economy.

The main goal of the course is to think critically about the following substantive questions: Why are some countries poor, unfree, and even violent while others are prosperous, stable, and democratic?  What role (if any) should and can the West play in addressing this? This course requires substantial reading, student discussion and presentations, as well as a written assignment.

Electoral Systems

Professor: Ignacio Lago 

This course strives to give the students a thorough and careful introduction to the essential ideas of electoral systems literature without requiring an extensive background. It focuses on the comparative study of electoral systems and their consequences for the way governments are chosen by the mass of citizens. Substantively, the course examines how a range of electoral institutions affect the extent and ease with which party elites and voters can coordinate to provide outcomes or opportunities for transacting that improve on their status quo, but would not happen in the absence of these electoral institutions. For our purposes, the basic idea of a coordination game can be conveyed by considering a classic illustrative game, the Battle of the Sexes.

Employment Policies and Labour Market 

Professor: Luis Ortiz Gervasi 

The transition from Industrial to Post-Industrial societies has generally entailed a dilemma between unemployment and inequality. For many societies, such a dilemma has turned unemployment into a central challenge for governments. After historically revising the evolution of labour markets in Europe, the effect of globalisation and the national institutions shaping the entry into the labour market, the course will explore the determinants and levels of unemployment in comparative perspective. It will analyse different policies against unemployment and the results these policies have had. The situation of women and ethnic minorities will be especially addressed in the last two weeks of the course.

Contemporary Financial and Economic Crises and their Impact on Social Well-Being

Professor: Visnja Vukov 

This course will critically analyze major debates and approaches to the contemporary economic and political crises in the European Union and the U.S. It will explore the politics of the 2008 Great Recession and the Eurozone crisis, as well as the implications of the most recent economic recession induced by the Covid-19 pandemic. What kind of institutions contributed to the vulnerabilities of Europe and the U.S. to the financial and economic crises and what underlying political dynamics shaped these institutions? Why does the U.S. seem to be better equipped than the EU for effectively responding to different crises and how can Europe reconcile its internal economic diversity with the need for a common crisis response? What kind of political conflicts and compromises emerge in the management of Great Recession and the Covid-19 crisis? What are the major consequences of these crises for social wellbeing and quality of life and what are their political effects and implications for democracy?

The course will explore these questions analysing the main political and institutional factors behind different crises vulnerabilities, the political determinants of responses from austerity to the recent economic stimulus packages, as well as the crises' social and political consequences. While the course will be centered in Europe and the U.S., other parts of the world will also be analyzed.

Federalism and Federations. Political Theory and Comparative Politics 

Professor: Klaus-Jürgen Nagel

About 40% of the world’s population lives in federal systems. Federalism is said to stabilize political systems by respecting autonomy and diversity and furthering cooperation, to enhance democracy by governing closer to the people, to establish an additional division of powers against the tyranny of the majority, but it is also accused to provide a stepping stone for the break-up of states, and to further the interests of bureaucrats and political classes.

The course combines political theory with comparison of cases. In a first part, the history and the main currents of federal thought with their philosophical, sociological, and political aspects will be analyzed, including, among others, Madisonian liberalism, Proudhonian anarchism, and personalist integral federalism. A second part deals with a selection of federal states and arrangements around the world, to help to understand their raison d’être and logics of function. We will not only see what federalism is, but also why it was chosen, and what ends it may eventually serve and under  which  conditions it may eventually succeed.