Challenges in Contemporary Democracies

Full course description

This course will give you the opportunity to delve into challenging issues in contemporary European democracies, such as representation, party competition, partisanship, affective polarization, populism, and democratic backsliding. The course will introduce you to the core concepts of representative democracy and its instututions,such as the executive, legislative, judiciary branches of government, as well as elections, political parties, interest groups and social movements. Parallel to the examination of how the institutions of representative democracy work (or not), every week you will tackle one topical contemporary issue. The course will examine how these challenges affect and are affected by existing democratic structures, for example, against the backdrop of the rising of far right parties, declining voter turnover in elections, and competitive elections.

Polarization, changing political behavior, new identity constructions and fundamental changes in party politics are as much focus of the course as are how these changes are reflected in cultural “products” in European society, such as, music, literature, cinema, video games, traditional and social media, etc. You are invited to dive into the synergetic relation between political institutions, daily life culture and mass media. In doing so, the course does not limit itself solely to Europe but also includes the global context, drawing on examples from countries that have specific social, cultural, or economic links with Europe. What we look at, in other words, are different ‘patterns of democracy’.