Description:
This course provides students with strong theoretical and empirical foundations to pursue
advanced research in the field of political economy. While our approach is primary grounded in
economic theory and quantitative methods, we are open to qualitative inputs from neighboring
disciplines such as history, political science and philosophy.
The first part of the course will cover the foundations of modern political economics and will be delivered mainly by Professor Anja Prummer. The focus will be on different approaches toward collective action, why dictatorships persist and democracies emerge. Moreover, we will discuss the mechanisms that may advocate transitions to democracy. A significant part of the course will elaborate on decision-making and preference aggregation mechanisms under direct and representative democracies and the efficiency consequences of special interest politics with a primary interest on lobbying.
The second part of the course will be delivered primarily by Professor Theocharis Grigoriadis and it will involve normative approaches to distribution and class competition, while the concepts of ethical voting and social norms will be reviewed extensively. Probabilistic models of voting and equilibrium concepts of multidimensional political competition underscore the logic of electoral politics, while the last two sessions are devoted to empirical designs with explicit reference to political science and historical approaches to political economy.
Literature:
Please see the list in the syllabus.
Time & venue:
Lecture: Mondays, 16:00-18:00; HU Berlin, Spandauer Str. 1, room 203
Tutorial: Tuesdays, 12:00-14:00 (first session: 15.04.2025); FU Berlin, Garystr. 21, lecture hall 108a
Further information is available in the syllabus.
Exam:
Exam and Referee Report
Further information is available in the syllabus.
