The current situation in the world politics and economy is very unstable, where the superpowers are engaged in various conflicts and rivalry. This development is apparent in trade wars with tariffs, creation of trade blocks, rivalry over global currency, creation of new development banks, new arms race, new military alliances and direct engagements to wars. At the same time, the acknowledged global challenges of climate change, poverty, population growth, etc., are pushed aside in the current power struggle, and are accumulating and threatening the lives of ours and the future generations’.

The course handles these current and future challenges of world politics and economy. The future aspect demands taking a holistic look at the development of past and present trends, to extrapolate their future. This happens through a systems approach, where the development of world politics and economy and their challenges are analysed through structures and functions of world system, its norms, values and legitimacy. The future challenges and structural and functional possibilities are last discussed relating them to the functional needs of the world system.  

Learning outcomes: The course will enhance student’s knowledge on the current and future challenges of world politics and economy. It empowers students in holistic analysis of the current and future challenges of world politics and economy. The methodical skills of future research of students will develop in the essay task. 

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP02 Introduction to Political Science, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

5 ECTS for Bachelor's level completion (POLVOA31)
10 ECTS for Master's level completion (POLVOS21)

Further information from the teacher at the beginning of the course.

Why do some issues receive political attention and some do not? Replying to this question is the purpose of agenda-setting. This is central not only to understand policy making but also political struggles. Studies progress building on early discussions of the power of keeping items on the agenda, path dependency and bounded rationality. Recent studies explore how the agenda changes after long periods of stability.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the agenda-setting classic and recent literature. Students will use the knowledge gained in the class to analyze policies that interest them through a final essay. The course makes use of demonstrations and data from the Comparative Agendas Project including 18 European and 2 North American countries, Australia and the European Union.

Email registration to the teacher is essential by 28/08/2018

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP02 Introduction to Political Science, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

5 ECTS for Bachelor's level completion (POLVOA31 & POLVOA32)
10 ECTS for Master's level completion (POLVOS26 & POLVOS27)

Further information from the teacher at the beginning of the course.

Across the Western world, representative democracy is party-based. Parties provide the essential link between the people and politicians and between parliament and government. At the same time, public confidence in parties as institutions is low to very low and anti-party sentiment has spawned protest parties of both right and left. Accordingly, this course adopts a thematic approach to the political science debate about political parties. Is the party over for political parties? The approach is theory-driven and the illustrative material will draw on a range of European systems.

Indicative Content

1. Classifying Political Parties

Can we speak of party types and, if so, on what basis – their origins, ideology, cross-national links? How can we understand the diversity of new parties, the likes of ethnic parties, anti-immigrant parties and regionalist parties?

2. Assessing Party Change

How and why do parties adapt and change? Can we enumerate a range of party change strategies? Have the historic class/denominational parties succeeded in becoming catchall parties?

3. Assessing Party Decline

Is there a sustainable case for party decline? Do parties really represent the people? Memberless parties; ‘registered supporters’; state subsidies; ‘cartellisation; the normative challenges to party democracy: personalisation, mediatisation, digitalisation.

4. Classifying party systems

What is a party system? Electoral and legislative party systems. Party system change. How great are the differences between modern party systems? Are they all moderate multi-party systems à la Sartori?

Lecture topics

23 October:  Parties: The Debate in Headlines

25 October Party Decline or Party Adaptation?

November 1 Protest Parties, ‘Anti’-Parties and APES

November 6:  How can we classify political parties?

November 8: From Party Politics to Personalized Politics?

November 13: Party Systems and Pariahs

November 15: There are fewer of them, but do parties need members?

November 20: Revisiting the debate about the ‘crisis of party’

Email registration essential by 11 October.

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP02 Introduction to Political Science, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

Students will write an essay (maximum 8 pages of A4) in English or Finnish analysing the pros and cons of the ‘party decline’ thesis in a country of their choice.

5 ECTS for Bachelor's level completion (POLVOA41)
10 ECTS for Master's level completion (POLVOS28)

Further information from the teacher at the beginning of the course.

The concept of politicization features prominently in the discussions on the future of democracy in Europe and the developments of European Integration. Prominent examples of politicization include Brexit, the euro crisis, the rise of variety of populist parties and questions concerning immigration and asylum policies.

The course will analyze the phenomenon of politicization from a variety of viewpoints. What does politicization actually mean and how should we define it? How broad a phenomenon is politicization? Is politicization a new or an old phenomenon? What causes politicization and what are its’ potential consequences? Is politicization a positive or negative development from the point of view of democracy or European integration?

Enrolment happens through contacting the teacher responsible via email from December 1st 2018 to January 7th 2019. Students majoring in political science will have priority access to the course, but students from other subjects or faculties can enroll in the course if places are still available.

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP02 Introduction to Political Science, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

To pass the course the students are required to participate actively in the classroom, to participate in the group work and present it and to write a short lecture diary and essay. Each lecture will discuss one central theme. The seminar will consist of presenting the results of the group work and discussing their results. The aim is to debate the ethical and political aspects of politicization.

5 ECTS for Bachelor's level completion (POLVOA21 & POLVOA22)
10 ECTS for Master's level completion (POLVOS22)

Further information from the teacher at the beginning of the course.

Popular music has played a significant role in western societies since the 1950’s. One of the main features of popular music is that it normally identifies to a certain performer or musician. Because of this identifying process, musicians themselves have become very well-known public figures. During the years, many musicians have used this publicity in order to influence to political processes and to support different political movements.

In this course, we are looking at the ways in which popular music and musicians affect politics. We are focusing on both historical and present context as we try to understand what is the role and meaning of popular music (and popular culture in more general terms) in the modern societies.

After the course, students will have a broad understanding of the different ways how alternative political action works. After the course students also have a comprehensive understanding of different political uses of popular music.

The lectures are open to anyone without registration but registration for the seminar part is mandatory and should be done via email to Aki Luoto (aki.luoto@uta.fi) by 2nd of January. In the seminar part there is room for only 24 students, and by completing the seminar part students don't have to write a learning diary. Seminar part includes deeper examining of different ways for popular music and musicians to be political. This is done weekly basis with "hands-on" methods of listening songs, studying historical events and discussing about political aspects of popular music.

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP02 Introduction to Political Science, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

5 ECTS for Bachelor's level completion (POLVOA42 & POLVOA52)
10 ECTS for Master's level completion (POLVOS23)

Further information from the teacher at the beginning of the course.

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP01 Introduction to International Relations, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

Upon completing the course, the students have an advanced understanding of some of the wicked or difficult-to-solve policy problems in contemporary Europe and of the means by which to address them on the EU and national levels. In particular, the students will be able to analyse cases where these two levels are interconnected. Problem-based learning will illustrate the difficulties and prospects of problem resolution with examples on problems like borders policy, Brexit and consumer involvement.

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP01 Introduction to International Relations, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

Despite recent concerns about a crisis of democracy, parliaments are to be the central political arenas in any liberal democracies. They are the key linkages between government and civil society backbenchers. This course is designed to provide students with a policy-relevant and theoretically informed examination of parliaments in the Nordic Countries. It is therefore concerned with both the formal processes and the traditions and relationships that characterize these institutions. Students are however incited to situate these cases in a wider European context.

Students will develop a detailed knowledge of parliaments and they will situate this alongside wider concerns about scrutiny and democratic engagement. The course will include a visit of the Eduskunta (Parliament of Finland) as well as guest lectures.

Email registration by the teacher is essential by 19/02/2019. Early registration is needed in order to organize the visit of the Eduskunta. No late registration will be accepted.

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP02 Introduction to Political Science, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

This course adopts a seminar format. There are no lectures. The evaluations of students is based on class attendance and participation (20%), reading assignments (30%) and the final essay based on theories covered in the course (50%).

5 ECTS for Bachelor's level completion (POLVOA32)
10 ECTS for Master's level completion (POLVOS27 & POMLFCS1)

Presidents of the Republic are crucial actors in both presidential and many (but not all) semi-presidential regimes. Despite the fact that those regime types represent the majority of all the world’s political systems, the role of the heads of state has only received more systematic attention. Particularly the presidential party remains understudied both theoretically and empirically. Drawing on comparative research and on illustrative examples from various countries, the course shows how the party of the president is a key political actor that affects presidential activity during her or his mandate and impacts on electoral and legislative outcomes.

Registration by email to the teacher before 31.3.2019.

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP02 Introduction to Political Science, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

5 ECTS for Bachelor's level completion (POLVOA31 & POLVOA32)
10 ECTS for Master's level completion (POLVOS27)

It is a fair bet that on any day of the year there will be an election somewhere, whether at the local, regional, national or supranational level. Somebody whispered to me that there is a general election coming up in Finland. But what is the point of elections? What do they decide – if anything? Few candidates like them, many voters dislike them and they are expensive at public expense. This course offers a fundamental examination of the multiple aspects of elections and the electoral process, with primary reference to contemporary representative democracies.

Indicative Content

1. The framework of electoral rules. The impact of the voting system rules on candidate selection and candidate election. Plurality, preferential and mixed member systems
2. Election campaigns. How much do national party campaigns really affect voters? Has there been a ‘presidentialisation’ of election campaigns? Do candidate campaigns in the constituency really matter?
3. The mediatisation of elections. Are the media (print/broadcast) decisive electoral actors? Do the media determine the campaign agenda? What about the role of the so-called social media?
4. The digitalisation of elections. How far does this varying from one country to another? Voting Advice Application. Video blogs. How do individual candidates communicate digitally with prospective voters?
5. Electoral outcomes. Do elections decide who governs? If not, who does? If elections do not determine who governs, what do they decide? Descriptive representation. Can we distinguish between ‘decisive’ and ‘indecisive’ elections?

Course Schedule

March 5 Why hold elections?

March 7 What should elections seek to achieve?

March 12 Do electoral actors play by the rules?

March 14 Do campaigns matter?

March 19 Have elections become more personalised?

March 21 Are elections decisive?

March 26 Do elections change the direction of policies?

March 28 Concluding Discussion: So what else did you want to know about elections but have’nt dared to ask?

Email registration essential by 25 February

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP02 Introduction to Political Science, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).

5 ECTS for Bachelor's level completion (POLVOA41)
10 ECTS for Master's level completion (POLVOS28)

Further information from the teacher at the beginning of the course.

This course explores the relationship between war and society, how this relationship is currently being transformed and the theoretical tools which can be employed to study related topics. After finishing the course students will be aware of the classic writings dealing with war; understand the developments driving the changes in war and warfare today; and be equipped with theoretical tools to independently study questions related to the issue.

The course consists of three parts. The first part introduces the students to major works of political philosophy regarding the nature of war through a series of lectures. It also provides an overview of how changes in society and technology have changed warfare throughout history. The second part deals with phenomena changing war and warfare today and in the near future. These include Kaldor’s concept of new wars, autonomous weapons, empowerment of non-state actors, cyberwarfare, the role of media etc. Students will work on a number of independent and group assignments. Finally, in the last part of the course, students are to give short presentations to the group on a selection of current approaches to studying security and war, such as critical theory, feminist and post-colonial approaches, different schools of security studies etc.

Students are expected to participate actively during lessons and finish a number of assignments. After the course, students will demonstrate capability to apply what they have learned through an essay on a topic of their own choosing. Evaluation will be based on active participation and the final essay.

Compulsory preceding studies: POLPOP01 Introduction to International Relations, or equivalent studies at sending institution (exchange students).