Module overview
Political parties are key actors in articulating popular demands and representing them in the policymaking process, mobilizing the masses and recruiting and socialising political elites. This course examines how parties perform these functions in Western European states. The first part of the module will focus on the main theoretical approaches to understand political parties. The second part of the module will analyze in detail recent changes in party organizations, party ideology as well as the role of parties beyond the confines of the nation state at the EU level.
The course is divided into three forms of instruction: lectures, seminars and computer labs. The computer labs will introduce students to datasets related to political parties and the software to analyse this data.
Linked modules
Pre-requisite: PAIR1001 OR PAIR1002 OR PAIR1004 OR PAIR1005