The course aims to introduce the sociological analysis of contemporary political processes. To this aim, after an introduction to political sociology (where the main concepts, paradigms and theoretical approaches of the discipline will be discussed) and a discussion of what is ‘politics’ and ‘political’, the course will focus on the following topics:
- Governance paradigms: Public Administration, New Public Management, New Public Governance. Welfare states and connected gender, migration and care regimes – variation in Europe. How is citizen envisaged in each of the paradigms?
- Public services as an interface through which citizens interact with the state; the role of local and central government; delegation of public services; the role of urban movements and non-governmental organizations; non-profit industrial complex.
- Direct democracy, civic participation, the role of civic activism. A review of case studies of participatory budgeting and other initiatives.
- Social movements and social change. Main sociological approaches to the study of social movements will be presented and discussed in class and through the referral readings (Resource mobilization theory, New social movements, Global social movements). Special attention will be given to the application of different perspectives to the analysis of concrete case-studies, as well as to the relation between social movements and social change.
- Diversity, migrations, citizenship: the emergence of new domains of rights beyond the civic-political-social triad (e.g. environmental, sexual, reproductive, cultural rights), the debates around gender, multiculturalism and citizenship.
- The sociology of party politics – class, gender, and ethnic dimension.
There will be guest speakers who specialize in various aspects of contemporary politics.