Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL2100: Political Conflicts in Europe

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Aims

This module familiarizes you with basic approaches to understand political conflicts in Europe from the perspective of comparative politics. This includes theories on party political conflict and its dimensions as well as theoretical approaches to understand ‘post-factual’ politics and threats to the quality of democracy. It aims at providing you with the skills to apply core theories to current political conflicts in a variety of European countries, to critically evaluate the usefulness of these theories, and to equip you with the presentation skills required to describe, analyse, and explain political conflicts in Europe yourself. That is, the module seeks to improve your ability to critically analyse texts and to communicate effectively. Apart from its focus on substantive issues, the module also seeks to introduce you to the comparative method and other quantitative research designs in political science. This focus also promotes an understanding of predictive social science models. Case studies come from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Northern Europe.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. demonstrate knowledge of the major concepts and theories used in political science to understand conflicts in Europe 2. evaluate theories in the field of comparative politics based on empirical evidence
Discipline-Specific Skills	3. exercise informed judgment concerning the use of empirical evidence in support of an argument in published research 4. synthesize competing theories to analyse new problems
Personal and Key Skills	5. present complex arguments with clarity and concision 6. work independently and with peers to meet common research and assessment deadlines effectively 7. speak confidently in front of small and large audiences on a subject you have studied

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

Party political conflict

Party systems and party families in Eastern and Western Europe
The rise of right-wing populism in Western and Northern Europe
Economic hardship and political conflict (case studies from Southern Europe)

The rise and fall of democracy

The promotion of democracy and EU enlargement (case studies: Eastern European countries, Balkan)
The quality of democracy (e.g. Poland and Hungary)
Political culture: trust and mistrust in political institutions in the East and West
Elite-mass linkages in a time of ‘post-factual’ politics

Globalisation and European integration

European identity: threat or unifying force?
Globalisation and immigration as a conflict at the national level
The nature of political conflict at the European level

Learning and Teaching

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	0

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

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities	22	11 x 2-hour lectures with a mix of lecture, collective discussion, and presentations
Guided Independent Study	78	Preparation and completion of course assignments (50 hours essay, 14 hours presentation, 14 hours reaction paper)
Guided Independent Study	50	Reading for seminars

Online Resources

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

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Basic reading:

Ferrin, M., and H. Kriesi (2016). How Europeans view and evaluate democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Flynn, D., B. Nyhan and J. Reifler (2017). The nature and origins of misperceptions: understanding false and unsupported beliefs about politics. Political Psychology 38 (S1): 127–150.

Hooghe, L., and G. Marks (2017). Europe’s Crises and Political Contestation. Journal of European Public Policy, unassigned.

Hutter, S., E. Grande and H. Kriesi (eds) (2016). Politicising Europe: Integration and Mass Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mudde, C. (2013). Three decades of populist radical right parties in Western Europe: So what?. European Journal of Political Research 52.1: 1-19.

Jost, J. T., P. Barberá, R Bonneau, M Langer, M Metzger, J Nagler, J Sterling, and J A. Tucker (2018). How Social Media Facilitates Political Protest: Information, Motivation, and Social Networks. Political Psychology 39 (2018): 85-118.

Norris, P. and R. Inglehart, 2018. Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Authoritarian Populism. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Risse, T. (2010). A Community of Europeans? Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Vachudova, M. (2014). EU leverage and national interests in the Balkans: The puzzles of enlargement ten years on. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 52.1: 122-138.

Vachudova, M. A. (2005). Europe undivided: democracy, leverage, and integration after communism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.