COURSE INFORMATION Course Title: PARTIES, ELECTIONS AND POLICY MAKING

Code	Course Type	Regular Semester	Theory	Practice	Lab	Credits	ECTS
PIR 206	A	4	3	0	0	3	5

Academic staff member responsible for the design of the course syllabus (name, surname, academic title/scientific degree, email address and signature)	NA
Lecturer (name, surname, academic title/scientific degree, email address and signature) and Office Hours:	Avdi Smajljaj
Second Lecturer(s) (name, surname, academic title/scientific degree, email address and signature) and Office Hours:	NA
Teaching Assistant(s) and Office Hours:	NA
Language:	English
Compulsory/Elective:	Compulsory
Classroom and Meeting Time:
Course Description:	This course aims to introduce students to political parties, party systems, and electoral systems. Theories of political parties and their inter-relation with democracy. Starting from the origin of parties, the party-based politics, up to the current transformation of political parties faced with new challenges. Moreover, a particular focus will be paid to inter-relation between party and electoral systems, how do they influence each other. The study will cover parties in consolidated as well as new emerging democracies, similarities and differences. This course if of micro-level in political sciences, penetrating inside the major political institutions like political parties.
Course Objectives:	Though parties have become increasing political and less social institution, still their importance in democracy is unavoidable. Therefore the course covers parties, elections and policy making through the lenses of democracy, their inter-relation, the way parties shapes democracy and vice versa. The course starts with historical development of parties as twins with modern democracy, their place in society and politics, internal organization, typology of parties and party system and electoral systems, inter-relation between party and electoral systems in various socio-political settings. In addition, a particular attention will be given also to the experience of unconsolidated democracies, like the case of our countries.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week	Topics
1	Introduction to the course
2	Historical development of parties
3	Theories of parties, parties and democracy, parties and democratization
4	Party species, organization of political parties, intra-party democracy, party-citizen linkages
5	Political parties and ideology, left-right placement
6	Party systems
7	Mid-term
8	Political parties at the EU level
9	Electoral systems
10	Single member plurality, Majoritarian electoral systems
11	Proportional electoral systems, Mixed electoral systems
12	Voting behavior, campaign methods
13	Current trends of populist parties and democracy
14	Concluding the course

Prerequisite(s):
Textbook:	Scarrow, S.E., Webb, P.D. and Poguntke, T. Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation and Power. Oxford University Press, 2017. Richard S. Katz and William J Crotty: Handbook of party politics, SAGE, 2005. David M. Farrell: Electoral systems - A comparative introduction, Palgrave, 2011.
Other References:	Journal of Party politics; europeanelectionstudies.net; journal of electoral studies; CESC
Laboratory Work:
Computer Usage:
Others:	No

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

1	assess the role of political parties in democracy and inter- relationship between parties and democracy
2	conduct a scientific research on parties, party systems, electoral systems, voting behaviors and campaign issues
3	evaluate the correlation between democracy and parties in new democracies
4	participate in electoral activity, monitoring and evaluating the electoral process
5	think independently and in a critique way about current developments in democracies through perspectives of parties, party systems, and electoral systems

COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO... PROGRAM COMPETENCIES (Blank : no contribution, 1: least contribution ... 5: highest contribution)

No	Program Competencies	Cont.
Bachelor in Political Science and International Relations (3 years) (Old) Program
1	Having and using advanced knowledge and comprehension supported by textbooks including actual knowledge in political sciences and international relations literature, materials and the other scientific resources.
2	Analyzing data, ideas and concepts of current political issues and international relations, determining complex events and topics, making discussions and developing new suggestions in accordance with researches.
3	Having knowledge and thought about actual topics and problems together with their historical, social and cultural aspects.
4	Introducing those who are interested in politics and international events with the topics of Political Science and IR and teaching clearly the problems and the types of solutions.
5	Improving skills of working together with the main social science disciplines and other disciplines which are related to Political Science and International Relations.
6	Improving critical thinking and skills in making research independently.
7	Developing solutions about the problems and conflicts which are common in national and international arena.
8	Improving skills for leadership and research and analyze capacity of those who is responsible with national and international ones.
9	Knowing any foreign language enough to communicate with colleagues and understand actual researches and articles.
10	Gaining IT skills to use computer and technology) in order to reach actual knowledge.
11	Gaining skills to follow societal, scientific and ethic values during collecting, interpreting, conducting of data related to social and political developments.
12	Having consciousness about human rights and environment.
13	Gaining the skills to follow actual developments and pursue long-life learning.

COURSE EVALUATION METHOD

Method	Quantity	Percentage
Midterm Exam(s)	1	30
Presentation	1	20
Final Exam	1	40
Attendance		10
	Total Percent:	100%

ECTS (ALLOCATED BASED ON STUDENT WORKLOAD)

Activities	Quantity	Duration(Hours)	Total Workload(Hours)
Course Duration (Including the exam week: 16x Total course hours)	16	3	48
Hours for off-the-classroom study (Pre-study, practice)	16	3	48
Mid-terms	1	10	10
Assignments	1	9	9
Final examination	1	10	10
Other			0
Total Work Load:			125
Total Work Load/25(h):			5
ECTS Credit of the Course:			5