Course 2020-2021 a.y.

• Social cleavages, voter values, and party strategy.
• Party identification and voter behavior.
• Campaigns, public opinion, and political communication.
• Spatial models of voter behavior.
• Electoral systems.
• Strategic voting.
• Economic voting.
• Party ideologies.
• Patterns of party competition.
• Protest politics.

• Summarize, and critically evaluate, major theories and/or empirical findings from political science research in the subfield of comparative political behavior.

• Analyze patterns of mass behavior and explain and predict the consequences of such behavior for electoral outcomes.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Individual assignments
• Group assignments

• Individual assignments consist of presentations of two or more readings (outside the regular course readings), in which students are expected to discuss the most recent developments in the field on the topic under discussion. The number of assignments is contingent on the size of the class.
• In their group assignments, students examine real-world mass behavior (using evidence from public opinion surveys or elections) to assess the empirical power of prominent arguments from political science research. The number of assignments is contingent on the size of the class.

Attending: The due dates for reading assignments are listed on the schedule below. Students are expected to complete the reading assignments before class, and to attend (virtually or physically) all lectures and group presentations. Attendance will be registered for each class meeting. Students will be assigned to groups, and each group will craft one presentation on assigned themes and will also serve in a discussant role on another group's presentation. Group assignments will be handed out 3 weeks before the presentation date (2 weeks before the draft slides have to be delivered to discussants). There will be a single comprehensive exam at the end of the course. The grading breakdown for attending students is as follows:

Group presentation 30%

Group discussion 15%

Final Exam 55%.

(Note that the group scores, by default, will be the same for each group member, but they may be adjusted up or down depending on peer evaluations of the individual contributions.)

The group assignment allows the students to demonstrate applied knowledge of concepts and empirical research presented in the course to make electoral predictions.

The final exam tests students on their knowledge of theories and empirical research relating to voter behavior and party competition, as well as their knowledge of contemporary political events.

For non-attending students, the final exam will be worth 100% of the course grade. A student will automatically, and irrevocably, be considered an attending student upon completion of either the group presentation or group discussion component of the course.

The final exam tests students on their knowledge of theories and empirical research relating to voter behavior and party competition, as well as their knowledge of contemporary political events.

Readings are listed on the course syllabus, which is made available to students by the end of July 2019.