Course for international guest/part time students

Faculty

Faculty of Social Sciences

Organization

TÁTK Department of Political Sciences

Code

NTm34-46

Title

Elections, democracies, autocracies

Usual semester

Spring

ECTS

5

Language

Learning outcomes

The course functions as a reading seminar where participants explore and analyze the most relevant issues of elections in different political systems through the lens of political science literature.

Course content

Introduction (March 1) Why do we elect, what do we elect (March 8) Key aspects and elements: voters, parties, competitiveness (March 22) The boundary problem of democracy (March 29) The will of the people (April 5) Democracy and competition: the role of campaign (April 12) Beyond representation (April 19) How to rig elections? (May 3) Elections in autocracies: do the matter? (May 10) Boycott, protest: what else, if not elections? (May 17) Elections: when do they democratize? (May 24)

Assessment method

Students have three assignements during the semester: preparing a 10-15-minutes long presentation about a chosen literature with a 1 page long handout (60%); being a discussant of a presentation (20%); active participation on seminars (20%). The two tasks must be made on different days about different topics. The selection process ends on March 3, 16:00.

Programmes of the course