Advanced seminar: Coping with Affective Polarization [30221]

Monday 2 – 6 pm | Swen Hutter

Have you ever avoided a topic at the family dinner table, unfollowed someone over their political posts, or felt uneasy about the idea of dating someone who votes differently than you? These everyday moments are symptoms of what political scientists and sociologists call affective polarization: the extent to which citizens feel attachment to their political in-group and dislike toward political out-groups. It captures partisan identity and social distance more than disagreement over policies, and it has become a defining feature of many contemporary democracies. In the research placement, we examine why affective polarization has risen, drawing on explanations such as social sorting, threat and emotion, and the role of populism, and we analyze its consequences for everyday social life, political participation, and democratic norms. A particular focus is on coping: how individuals, civil society actors, and institutions respond to polarized environments, and which strategies of depolarization actually work. The latter cover strategies such as contact and dialogue formats or reframing and norm-setting. Students will develop and conduct their own empirical projects on affective polarization, either relying on existing survey data or designing original studies. To give some concrete examples, possible research designs may include survey experiments manipulating partisan cues, vignette studies on the legitimacy of protest, conjoint experiments on dating, roommate, or hiring decisions, or the design and pilot testing of depolarization interventions such as cross-partisan dialogue formats.

Please note that participants need a good intermediate background in statistical modeling and should be proficient in either Stata or R. These skills will be assessed in the first session of the class.

Suggested reading

Torcal, Mariano and Eelco Harteveld (eds.) (2025). Handbook of Affective Polarization. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar

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Basic course: Introduction to European Integration [30201]

Tuesday 10 am – 12 pm| Swen Hutter

European integration has had major consequences for European societies, politics, and policy-making. The lecture gives a thorough overview of the history of the integration process and the current state of the European Union (EU). Specifically, the students will get to know the basic institutional features of the EU and the major theoretical approaches used to explain the level and scope of integration. Also, the lecture puts a spotlight on debates over the politicization of Europe, the decline of citizens’ support, and the multiple crises faced by the EU in recent years. The students will advance their understanding of the political and social implications of European integration as an important background for their further studies of contemporary European societies.

Suggested readings

Cini, Michelle and Nieves Pérez-Solórzano Borragán (eds.) (2025). European Union Politics. Eighth Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lelieveldt, Herman and Sebastiaan Princen (2023). The Politics of the European Union. Third Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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Advanced seminar: The Transformation of West European Political Arenas [30202]

Monday 12 – 2 pm | Alexander Pries

In recent decades, Western European democracies have undergone profound political transformations. Established party families have lost significant portions of their traditional voter bases and ideological profile. Additionally, two waves of new party families have emerged. Beginning in the late 1960s, new social movements began emphasizing issues such as environmental protection, climate change, and minority rights. Later, these were brought into the political arena by party families commonly referred to as the “New Left” or “Green Parties.” More recently, a second wave has materialized with the rise of Populist Radical Right parties, driven by increasing salience of issues such as immigration and nationalism. Several political crises—including the financial, migration, and pandemic crises—alongside long-term developments such as educational expansion, globalization, and European integration have accompanied and shaped these shifts.

The core question of this seminar is: How can we make sense of these developments? To answer this, the seminar is structured into three blocks: We begin by examining classic understandings of West European politics using cleavage theory. What is a political cleavage, and how did it structure political competition in the post-war period? Next, we turn to empirical studies on political change. How has the political arena evolved, and how have scholars explained these changes? While some argue that we are witnessing the dealignment between social groups and political parties, others interpret these changes as signs of realignment along a new political cleavage. In the final block, we bring together theory and empirical findings to critically evaluate competing explanations. We ask: What are the strengths and limitations of current approaches, and how might we better understand contemporary European politics? By the end of this course, students will have developed a solid understanding of key debates in the field and honed their skills in conceptual clarity, empirical analysis, and critical engagement with social research.

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Advanced seminar: From Question to Answer: Analysing Survey Data with R [30216]

Monday 2 – 4 pm | Alexander Pries

This seminar provides an applied introduction to key topics in the analysis of survey data using large European representative surveys such as the European Social Survey (ESS) and the European Values Study (EVS). Theoretically, students are introduced to research questions and the measurement of concepts in the context of survey methodology: What questions can we ask, and what concepts can we measure using survey data? Students apply this knowledge by navigating the documentation of these surveys. In the applied part, the course introduces tools for analyzing survey data using R and RStudio. It guides students through the main steps involved in the early stages of survey data analysis, from data preparation to descriptive and inferential statistics. By the end of the seminar, students will have a basic understanding of the key considerations when analyzing survey data, as well as a foundational toolkit for conducting applied survey data analysis in R and RStudio.

Prior knowledge of R, R Markdown (or Quarto), and basic statistics is advantageous but not required.