Module POL2104 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POL2104: Party Politics and Democracy
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Module Aims
The aims of this module are to provide you with a detailed examination of the place of parties in representative democracies. A key emphasis of the module will be to enrich your understanding of the role of political parties both in the historical development of representative democracy and in its contemporary crises, using a range of theoretical approaches and empirical studies. Through taking this course and fully participating you will leave with a grasp of key debates in party studies and theories of partisanship and knowledge of historical and contemporary trends in the relationship between democracy and party politics.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
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Module-Specific Skills | 1. Demonstrate good knowledge of the role of partisan agency in the historical development of representative democracy and in its contemporary crises. 2. Assess the democratic merits of party strategies in Europe and the US from a range of theoretical perspective. |
Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. Demonstrate an understanding of contemporary debates in the field of party studies. 4. Display knowledge of diverse approaches to the democratic functions of political parties and a capacity to apply these theoretical tools to empirical case studies. |
Personal and Key Skills | 5. Conduct independent research and exercise critical reasoning in weighing academic arguments 6. Demonstrate analytical capacity and structure in written and oral expression |
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.
The first half of the module will be chronological, and provide an insight into the progressive institutionalisation of political parties in Western Europe and the United States, from the mid-19th century to post-World War Two. The first sessions will focus on political parties in early modern thought, and consider the arguments that rose both against and in favour of political parties by political thinkers and actors in the 18th and early 19th century. The module will then examine topics such as the interaction between the birth of mass parties and the extension of the voting suffrage; the role of political parties in the development of political cleavages, and the totalitarian turn of partisanship in the inter-war period.
The second part of this module will be thematical, and investigate different aspects of the evolution of party politics since the end of the Second World War. It will interrogate the relevance of political parties for contemporary democracy and critically examine the proposition that they have become obsolete. Themes studied in this second part will include:
- The gradual erosion of the mass party as an organizational form
- The rise of populist parties in Europe
- The role of transnational partisanship in the EU
- The progressive polarization of American politics.
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 |
...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 Activities | 22 | 11 x 2 hour per week seminars including small group work, presentations, and class discussion. |
Guided Independent Study | 50 | Reading |
Guided Independent Study | 30 | Preparation and completion of examination |
Guided independent study | 13 | Presentation preparation |
Guided Independent Study | 35 | Essay writing |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
How this Module is Assessed
In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.
Formative Assessment
A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.
Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
---|---|---|---|
Group class presentations | 15 minutes | 1-6 | Oral |
General seminar participation and engagement in group work | Throughout the course | 1-6 | Oral |
Summative Assessment
A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.
Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
---|---|---|
50 | 50 | 0 |
...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.
Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
---|---|---|---|---|
Essay | 50 | 2,500 words | 1-6 | Written and Oral |
Examination | 50 | 1 hour | 1-6 | Written and Oral |
Re-assessment
Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.
Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
---|---|---|---|
Essay | Essay (2,500 words) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
Examination | Examination (1 hour) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
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:
Hofstadter, Richard (1969), The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780-1840, Berkeley: University of California Press
Katz, Richard S., and William J. Crotty, eds. 2006. Handbook of party politics. London: SAGE.
Mair, Peter. 2013. Ruling the Void, The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London: Verso.
Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist radical right parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Muirhead, Russell (2014) The Promise of Party in a Polarized Age, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Rokkan, Stein, and Seymour Martin Lipset (1967) Party systems and voter alignments: cross-national perspectives, New York: Free Press.
Rosenblum, Nancy (2008), On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship, Princeton: PUP
Sartori, Giovanni (1976), Parties and Party Systems, Cambridge: CUP
Schattschneider, Elmer Eric. 2009 [1942]. Party government, American government in action series. New Brunswick: Transaction publishers.
White, Jonathan, and Léa Ypi (2016) The meaning of partisanship, Oxford: Oxford University Press.