Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POC2128: Global Authoritarianism

This module descriptor refers to the 2022/3 academic year.

Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.

While the precise content will vary from year to year, it is expected that the module will include lectures on the following themes:

Global Democracy in Decline?
Studying authoritarianism – methodological and empirical challenges
Authoritarianism as Regime Type
Authoritarian Institutions (legislatures, courts, constitutions)
The Political Economy of Authoritarianism (e.g. rentier states, patronalism, corruption)
Civic Life under Authoritarianism (civil society, protests and repression, welfare)
From 20th – 21st Century Authoritarianism (innovations in authoritarian governance, technology and authoritarianism)
The International politics of authoritarianism (norm diffusion, democracy prevention, authoritarian international institutions, rising powers, decline of the West)
Authoritarianism in democratic countries (populism, Trump etc., authoritarianism as a set of practices)
How has COVID-19 exacerbated authoritarianism?

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
22	128

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching activity	22	11 x 2 hour seminars
Guided independent study	65	Private study, reading and preparing for seminars (approx. 6 hours of private study per seminar)
Guided independent study	28	Researching and writing Critical Literature Review
Guided independent study	30	Researching and writing essay
Guided independent study	5	Preparing formative presentation

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

A good summary of how to write a policy brief - https://writingcenter.unc.edu/policy-briefs/

Blog on authoritarianism managed at Sheffield and Birkbeck - https://thelanguageofauthoritarianregimes.wordpress.com/

Research project ‘Authoritarianism in a Global Age’, University of Amsterdam, http://www.authoritarianism-global.uva.nl/

NED podcast on authoritarian resurgence - https://www.ned.org/ideas/podcast/