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The seminar module offers a more extensive and more thorough analysis of a topic from within political science. To this end, the seminar module provides an overview and a critical discussion of the literature and the issues relevant for the topic of the seminar.
The objectives for this module are:
After attending this seminar, the students should be capable of
Why did modern democracy originate in Western Europe and North America? Why has it engulfed most parts of the world in the latest generation? And what are the consequences of this salient wave of democratization, nationally as well as internationally?
These are merely a selection of the questions which will be addressed in this seminar. Accordingly, the title of the seminar is "The Long Journey of Democracy" and it revolves around what is arguably one of the hottest topics of Political Science at present: research on democracy and democratization.
The seminar builds on our finalizing a textbook on democracy and democratization. This book seeks to fulfil three criteria. First, to elucidate why the subject has become so prominent in comparative politics and international relations, including what the main scholarly objectives of this teeming agenda are. Second, to cover both democratic theory (the what?), the empirical dynamics of democratization (the when?), explanations of these developments (the why?), and their consequences (the so what?). Third, to integrate these three aspects into a coherent framework, which students of democratization can use to grasp the literature as a whole.
The fourfold structure of the seminar follows from this. In Part I (on the ‘Conceptions' or ‘the what?'), we describe and discuss the development of democratic theory from Ancient Greece to the present day. Coupled with a discussion about conceptualization and logics, this serves to define the key concepts of the seminar. In Part II, we map the cross-temporal and cross-spatial development of democracy since its revival about 200 years ago (the ‘Conjunctures' or ‘the when?') based on these definitions and on considerations about measurement. The aim of Part III is both to discuss the extant body of literature on democratization (the ‘Causes' or ‘the why?') and, using methodological tools, to relate it to the empirical trends which we have laid bare in Part II. Picking up on these issues, the seminar ends with a fourth part (the ‘Consequences' or ‘the so what?') which deals with the effects of democracy and democratization, theoretically and empirically.
As a consequence of following (and passing) the seminar, the participants should have strengthened their analytical abilities in general and have achieved a clear overview of the democratization literature in particular, including the ability to carry out thorough and independent analyses of democratization processes. Also, they should have achieved insight into how an academic book is conceived, structured and written.
Comparative Politics (Double seminar)
Of the nine seminars the student has to pass as part of the MA degree, at least six seminar modules have to be in political science
Jørgen Møller and Svend-Erik Skaaning
The assessment method is home assignment.
External examiner/Graded marking.
The seminar module requires active participation of students. At the beginning of the seminar module the lecturer and the students agree on specific "activity requirements" that the students have to fulfill.
Throughout the seminar, we read and discuss the preliminary chapters of our textbook and selected ‘primary' texts which these chapters deal with. In this process, important skills, tools and ideas are conveyed through practical exercises, either on class or between classes.
One of the main objectives of the seminar is to further develop our manuscript. Each student is therefore expected to read widely on each of the topics and to participate actively in the discussions of the chapters. Also, each student is expected to engage with the draft of the textbook, most probably via AULA.
This process serves to guide each participant toward a research question which calls for further research. With our guidance, the identified research question will then be dealt with in a 30-pages essay. The students are graded according to the extent to which - in their respective paper - they are able to employ the theoretical and methodological reasoning that we have trained throughout the course. More particularly, each student is graded according to the extent to which his/her exam paper reflects the ability to define key concepts, discuss the theoretical literature, and test relationships in convincing and independent ways.
Shortly before the seminar commences, we will set up an AULA homepage, at which the participants can find an elaborate plan of the seminar, including the syllabus and the chapters of our textbook.
The module compendium consists of about 2,400 pages.
Concerning the home assignment the student agrees with the lecturer the reading which is relevant for the research question of the home assignment. The reading forms part of the 2,400 pages which students have to read for a double seminar module.
Møller, Jørgen & Svend-Erik Skaaning (2011). The Long Journey of Democracy: Conceptions, Conjunctures, Causes, and Consequences , unpublished manuscript.
A broad selection of ‘primary' texts from the democratization literature.
