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Comparative Politics - Enhanced Level 

Students acquire the ability to illustrate and explain the structure and function profiles of different democratic governmental systems. Moreover, they are able to individually analyse and evaluate complex phenomena from the field of comparative government based on relevant theoretical-conceptual approaches.

Based on a critical assessment of different crisis diagnoses of contemporary representative democracy, this seminar shall look at different reform agendas and institutional innovations designed to revitalize and improve the performance of representative democracy from a comparative perspective. This shall include, inter alia, compulsory voting, child enfranchisement, term limits, and gender quotas.

Reading, presentations and discussion; assessment on the basis of oral presentations and written term papers.

Oral (presentations) & written (term paper)

Claus Offe (Hrsg.), Demokratisierung der Demokratie: Diagnosen und Reformvorschläge, Frankfurt a.M./New York 2003

successful completion of compulsory modules 1, 2 , 3 and 7