Political Behaviour
Code: 106190 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2504216 Contemporary History, Politics and Economics | OB | 3 | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- Oriol Bartomeus Bayès
- Email:
- oriol.bartomeus@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.
Prerequisites
The student must have acquired the basic notions of Political Science prior to the development of this course. Must be able to read and understand English and work easily with spreadsheets, in addition to certain notions to be able to interpret graphs and maps.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The course has three fundamental objectives:
- That students know the basic elements that define and characterize political and electoral behavior in democratic political systems.
- That students can use the theories and variables that explain how citizens think and act in the political field.
- That students know and can use the main data and methodologies available for the analysis of political behavior.
Competences
- Contrast the main contemporary political theories.
- Explain and summarise knowledge acquired in English language at an advanced level.
- Identify the main actors, structure and functioning of political systems in the internal and international sphere from a theoretical or applied perspective.
- Manage and apply data to solve problems.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- Work cooperatively in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams implementing new projects.
Learning Outcomes
- Apply quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques in research processes.
- Arguing from different theoretical perspectives.
- Demonstrate the capacity to continue working in the future autonomously gaining a deeper understanding of the knowledge acquired or embarking on new areas of knowledge.
- Demonstrating good writing skills in different contexts.
- Designing data collection techniques, coordinating the information processing and meticulously applying hypothesis verification methods.
- Explaining political, individual and collective attitudes and behaviours, as well as the education process and expression of political preferences.
- Identify the main actors in the political system, examine their interactions and evaluate their behaviour in their environment and in the political system from a theoretical and applied perspective.
- Identifying and distinguishing the functioning of the electoral processes.
- Identifying sources of data and conducting bibliographic and documentary searches.
- Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
- Identifying the social, economic and political structures of the contemporary world.
- Interpreting and applying English texts in an academic way.
- Managing the available time in order to accomplish the established objectives and fulfil the intended task.
- Present works in formats tailored to the needs and personal styles, both individual and small group.
- Producing and preparing presentations of reports and intervention proposals.
- Realising effective oral presentations that are suited to the audience.
- Showing a good capacity for transmitting information, distinguishing key messages for their different recipients.
- Synthesizing and critically analysing information.
- Use metatheoretical data to argue and establish plausible relation of causality and establish ways of validating or rejecting them.
- Using the main information and documentation techniques (ICT) as an essential tool for the analysis.
- Working autonomously.
- Working by using quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques in order to apply them to research processes.
- Working in teams and networking, particularly in interdisciplinary conditions.
Content
1. History of theoretical approaches to understand electoral behavior
2. Political participation
3. Attitudes, values and emotions. Political culture and democratic values
4. Elections
5. Parties and schemes of political competition
6. The explanation of the vote: who votes what and why
7. Political behavior
8. Political behavior in complex systems. The Catalan case
In all the sections, special emphasis will be placed on the evolution of the different subjects over time, with particular emphasis on the effect of generational change.
Methodology
There are three types of face-to-face sessions:
1 Lectures in which the teaching staff presents the theoretical content in interaction with the students.
2 Debate sessions. In them the knowledge acquired through the analysis of the readings is shared and discussed.
3 practice sessions. They work on an application exercise of the knowledge acquired through data analysis.
During the independent activities, the students will have to prepare the materials corresponding to each session, prepare the works that will be evaluated and prepare the contents of the exam.
In both oral and written expressions, special care will be taken in the non-sexist use of language, both by the teaching staff and the students.
Note: 15 minutes of a class will be reserved, within the calendar established by the center/degree, for students to fill in surveys to evaluate the performance of the teaching staff and to evaluate the subject /module.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Debate sessions | 19 | 0.76 | |
| Lectures | 38 | 1.52 | |
| Writing the practical exercises | 16 | 0.64 | |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Evaluation | 2 | 0.08 | |
| Tutorials | 15 | 0.6 | |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Mandatory readings related to practices or debates | 30 | 1.2 | |
| Study of the contents explained in class | 30 | 1.2 |
Assessment
Final exam (40%). The exam will consist of commenting on a table, graph or map.
Practices (30%). Attendance and the delivery of the work completed at the end of the class will be assessed. These practices will in no case be recoverable.
Final work (30%). It will consist of the development of one of the practices or a research question related to the syllabus. Its characteristics will be explained in class.
In accordance with article 117.2 of the UAB Academic Regulations, the evaluation of repeat students may consist of a single synthesis test. Repeat students who wish to take advantage of this possibility must contact the teaching staff at the beginning of the year.
To pass the subject you will need an overall minimum grade of 5 and a minimum grade of 4 in the exam.
The dates of the different tests will be explained on the first day of class.
Unique assessment
Students who request it have the right to examine themselves in a single act, which will consist of a final exam of two tests, which will be held on the same day as the final exam and the grade of which will be the final grade of the subject
Students can take the Single Assessment through a form between September 18 and October 6
The same recovery system will be applied as for the continuous assessment.
Compensatory assessment
If the exam score is lower than 4, it will not be averaged with the practical score. The student will have the right to the compensatory assessment whenever these conditions are met:
Have a final grade in the subject of at least 3.5.
Having delivered two of the three practices that are required throughout the semester.
In the event that the student commits any irregularity that could lead to a significant variation in the grade of an assessment act, this assessment act will be graded with 0, regardless of the disciplinary process that may be instituted. In the event that several irregularities occur in the evaluation acts of the same subject, the final grade for this subject will be 0.
Those assessment acts in which there have been irregularities (copying, unauthorized use of AI, etc.) are not recoverable and woulb carry a 0 grade in the final evaluation.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final exam | 40 | 0 | 0 | 2, 3, 4, 6, 13, 7, 8, 11, 10, 17, 18, 21 |
| Practices | 30 | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 19, 4, 15, 16, 13, 7, 9, 11, 10, 12, 17, 14, 18, 22, 21, 23, 20 |
| final work | 30 | 0 | 0 | 2, 5, 6, 13, 7, 9, 8, 11, 10, 17, 14, 18, 21, 23, 20 |
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Software
Excel. SPPS i QGIS optional