Comparative Political Parties and Public Policies

Undergraduate

Political parties are a key institution at the heart of representative democracies. The organization of parties, their connections to voters and interest groups and their use of programmatic and nonprogrammatic promises in appealing to voters varies significantly across countries. The goal of this course is to familiarize students with comparative research on party and party systems. We examine the historical development of political parties, examining the processes by which different societal ‘cleavages’ lead to the formation of new parties and the importance of electoral laws in accounting for different party configurations. We next provide an overview of the dynamics of party development during the postwar period, examining processes of polarization and depolarization of the party landscape, the relationship between parties and interest groups, the contribution of different parties to policy developments and changes in political representation. SO W 4pm-5:55pm