Research Seminar “Civil and Political Processes” (2024/2025 academic year)

2024/2025

Учебный год

ENG

Обучение ведется на английском языке

4

Кредиты

Лучший по критерию «Полезность курса для расширения кругозора и разностороннего развития»

Кто читает:

Департамент социологии

Статус:

Курс по выбору

Когда читается:

3-й курс, 1-4 модуль

Преподаватели

Аркатов Дмитрий Александрович

Мацкевич Мария Георгиевна

Ткачева Татьяна Юрьевна

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This seminar offers a cross-disciplinary perspective on political power, institutions, civic movements, and their socio-cultural context. It draws mainly from sociology, political science, and cultural studies and will be most useful to students interested in how modern societies are organized and negotiated through politics, and how this can be studied. Key to this seminar is reading and discussing original research papers. As a result, the students will expand their knowledge of the subject and their skills of critical reading, participating in discussions, and writing short text with their arguments based on previous reading. The seminar starts with a discussion of illiberal democracy theoretical approaches, civil society and social movements in non-Western contexts, proceeding to analysis of emotions’ role in politics during social change. The seminar is going to cover issues related to emotional aspects of human interaction with AI.

Learning Objectives

• The objectives of this seminar are to get the students acquainted with current research perspectives and techniques in political and civic processes and to train students' skills of academic speaking, reading, and writing.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• - to discuss current research perspectives and techniques in political and civic processes
• - to explain the functions of elections across political regimes
• - to explain how quality of governance is measured
• - to discuss public participation across cultures
• - to discuss policy making issues
• - to know the basics of academic reading and writing, academic culture, and the variety of non-academic research output formats
• - to know a variety of existing theories of nationalism, national identity and nation building
• - to discuss problems of historical legacies

Course Contents

• Migration, minorities and diaspora
• Nationalism and its strategies worldwide
• Political behavior, narratives and values across political regimes
• Types of political regimes, measurements, indexes, basics of comparative politics
• Media and politics

Assessment Elements

• Quiz
  10 minutes-quiz with 10 multiple-choice items. Each correct answer gives 1 point to the quiz mark.
• Exam
  A written exam paper should include a clear statement of the research problem, explanation of known research perspectives on the problem by using concepts and analytical tools from home reading, and the examples, comments and remarks of the student.
• Written assignment
• In-class Participation

Interim Assessment

• 2024/2025 4th module
  0.2 * Written assignment + 0.3 * Exam + 0.3 * In-class Participation + 0.2 * Quiz

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Alena Ledeneva. (2018). The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 2 : Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity. UCL Press.
• Flick, U., Scott, W., & Metzler, K. (2014). The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. London, [England]: SAGE Publications Ltd. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=799015
• Marlene Laruelle, & Johan Engvall. (2015). Kyrgyzstan Beyond “Democracy Island” and ’Failing State’ : Social and Political Changes in a Post-Soviet Society. Lexington Books.

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Anthony Downs. (1957). An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy. Journal of Political Economy, 135. https://doi.org/10.1086/257897

Authors

• TKACHEVA TATYANA YUREVNA
• Ильина Мария Ивановна
• Matskevich Mariia Georgievna