Understanding politics also and necessarily means studying its social foundations and mastering the tools useful for understanding and interpreting the multiple and reciprocal influences between politics and society.

A key concept is that of political participation: we will look at the forms that activism can take and its determinants, and then critically reflect on the space and meaning that participation occupies within democracy as a theoretical-normative reference and representative governments as an empirical framework. In order to understand the current context, it is necessary to start from the changes that have taken place in the institutions entrusted with mediating society's demands to the political institutions: political parties, social movements and interest groups/lobbies. Special attention will then be paid to the concepts of socialisation and political generation, opening up a reflection on the reality of youth and its relationship with the sphere of politics and activism in our country from a comparative perspective.

Focusing on changes and transformations in forms of engagement and militancy will allow us to introduce the debate on the evolution of Western representative governments. The latter are struggling with the consequences of global geopolitical shifts and the ecological crisis, with the slide towards technocratic scenarios, and at the same time challenged by the 'neo-populist' wave; in a context in which technoscience plays an increasingly important role, the challenge to political and economic elites also increasingly involves expert knowledge and established epistemic authorities, phenomena that are at the centre of the debate around the concept of "science-related populism".

Starting from this common framework, students will be able to choose one of the following four paths for the monographic part, according to their interests. Each of these pathways has a different study program.

Path 1. Who are young people in contemporary Italy? Physiognomy of the generation; study and work goals and aspirations; images, expectations and political behaviour.
Path 2. Exploring the transformations of contemporary Western representative parties and governments
Path 3. Environmental Justice, Political Ecology and Territorial Conflicts
Path 4. Between technocracy and populism: epistemic conflicts, technoscience and science-related populism

In addition to a series of theoretical lectures dedicated to the presentation and class discussion of concepts, theories and research, the course includes a laboratory consisting of a qualitative research project in which the entire class participates, giving students the opportunity to become a research team and, under the guidance of the lecturer, to plan together the different phases of a social research project on a current issue relevant to the discipline. The exercise has a twofold aim: to encourage a critical reappraisal of the concepts and theories presented in the course, and to stimulate an exercise in the application and translation of concepts into research hypotheses, thus sharpening methodological skills. 

Lectures and discussions will focus on the following topics:

-  The foundations of the discipline

-  Political participation: differentiations, forms, explanatory models - why do people (not) participate? Who actually participates?

-  Political participation and democracy

-  Parties: definition, party models, research perspectives

-  Social movements: definition, research perspectives, emerging social movements and old and new cleavages

-  Interest and pressure groups

-  The debate on the crisis of representative democracies and the challenge of neo-populism

-  Political culture: definition and application to the Italian case

-  Political socialisation and generations: "youth" in the sociological literature and in today's debate

-  The ecological crisis, environmental justice and territorial conflicts

-  Challenges to consolidated epistemic authorities and expertise, and "science-related populism"

No bridging courses are needed.

Knowledge and understanding.

• Students will have to show their knowledge and their capacity of critical analysis about the main theoretical perspectives concerning the discipline and the most important objects of study, such as political parties, social movements and interest/pressure groups.
• Students are expected to learn fundamental concepts such as political engagement, political culture, socialization and so on. With respect to these, they will have to show their capacity to define them in a precise way and to retrace the main research works which have structured theories and perspectives of research.

Applying knowledge and understanding.

A particular attention will be dedicated to the relationship between theory and empirical research. In this perspective, starting from the theories and the concepts explained during the lectures, a practice exercise will be organized consisting in the planning and developing of a qualitative research project focused on emerging forms of political engagement. The classroom will have the opportunity to become a research team and will be involved in all the phases of the project. Through this practice exercise, we expect the students:

• to check and consolidate their degree of knowledge and understanding of theoretical notions;
• to learn how to move from abstract theories and concepts to the formulation of research hypothesis;
• to improve their capacities to translate complex concepts into variables, through the process of operationalization;
• to enhance their ability to coordinate themselves with others and to team work.

Making judgments.

The course intends to provide students with instruments useful for the analysis and the interpretation of politics, and of the relationship between politics and society, which are untrammeled by the immediacy and contingence of the media debate, since they are based on scientific analysis, on compared studies and on the long period. For this reason, we expect students to acquire useful instruments for a rigorous and autonomous critical analysis of the complex social and political changes occurring within contemporary political systems.

 Communication skills

• We expect students, at the end of the course, to be able to critically analyse and discuss the proposed topics also through an appropriate language.
• Moreover, the analysis of the research results will be carried out by groups made up of 3-4 students. At the end of the work, each group will be asked to present through an oral dissertation supported by PowerPoint slides the results and their interpretation to the classroom, and to take part to the following debate. Through this phase, we expect an enhancement of students’ public speaking and discussing ability.

Learning skills

 Students will have to develop adequate learning skills, useful in order to widen the competences acquired through the course and to apply them to new analysis and survey questions. The course will adopt different methods of educational work in order to attain these objectives, such as: frontal lectures on basic topics, use of visual materials, in-depth classroom debates focused on main topics and research, participation to the practice exercise consisting in the elaboration of a research project dealing with emerging forms of political engagement.  

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Class debate and collective research project on a theme relevant to the discipline.

Teaching

Attendance to lectures and participation in class debates, participation to the social research workshop.

Innovative teaching methods

Social research workshop:

Collaborative definition of research questions and objectives with students, discussion of methodological choices, pre-testing and conducting interviews (individual work), work in small groups (student-led activity) for the analysis and presentation of results, final class discussion.

Attendance

Attendance at at least three quarters of the lectures.

Course books

Bibliographies in English or French will be defined in agreement with each student according to her/his study interests.

Assessment

Students’ acquired skills and competencies will be evaluated through an oral exam, in order to check their capacity to support an argument and a discussion on the topics concerning the discipline. Also, individual work within the practice exercise will be evaluated. The oral exam will weight for the 2/3 on the final evaluation, while the last third will be determined by individual contribution to the classroom exercise.

Concerning the oral exam, the following are the dimensions which will be mainly valued:

• Students’ capacity to clearly define the main theories and concepts of the discipline;
• The degree of articulation of their answers and arguments;
• Their capacity to critically assessing the concepts and of analyzing socio-political facts and events through the theoretical instruments proposed in the course.

Concerning the practice exercise, the evaluation will mainly take into account:

• The degree of individual commitment in the research project;
• Their capacity to personally contribute to the project in an appropriate and original way;
• Their team working ability;
• Their capacity to adopt appropriate methodological practices;
• The acquisition of the ability to analyze and interpret empirical materials (interviews) at the light of the theoretical notions learned during the course;
• Their public speaking and discussing abilities.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Attendance

Study of bibliography (defined in agreement with the lecturer).

Course books

Bibliographies in English or French will be defined in agreement with each student according to her/his study interests.

Assessment

Students’ acquired skills and competences will be evaluated through an oral exam, in order to check their capacity to support an argument and a discussion on the topics concerning the discipline. The following are the dimensions which will be mainly valued:

• Students’ capacity to clearly define the main theories and concepts of the discipline;
• The degree of articulation of their answers and arguments;
• Their capacity of critically assessing the concepts and of analyzing socio-political facts and events through the theoretical instruments proposed in the course.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

The student can request to sit the final exam in English/French with an alternative bibliography.