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Political Behaviour

Code: 106190 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2504216 Contemporary History, Politics and Economics OB 3

Contact

Name:
Oriol Bartomeus Bayès
Email:
oriol.bartomeus@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


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

  1. Apply quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques in research processes.
  2. Arguing from different theoretical perspectives.
  3. 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.
  4. Demonstrating good writing skills in different contexts.
  5. Designing data collection techniques, coordinating the information processing and meticulously applying hypothesis verification methods.
  6. Explaining political, individual and collective attitudes and behaviours, as well as the education process and expression of political preferences.
  7. 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.
  8. Identifying and distinguishing the functioning of the electoral processes.
  9. Identifying sources of data and conducting bibliographic and documentary searches.
  10. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  11. Identifying the social, economic and political structures of the contemporary world.
  12. Interpreting and applying English texts in an academic way.
  13. Managing the available time in order to accomplish the established objectives and fulfil the intended task.
  14. Present works in formats tailored to the needs and personal styles, both individual and small group.
  15. Producing and preparing presentations of reports and intervention proposals.
  16. Realising effective oral presentations that are suited to the audience.
  17. Showing a good capacity for transmitting information, distinguishing key messages for their different recipients.
  18. Synthesizing and critically analysing information.
  19. Use metatheoretical data to argue and establish plausible relation of causality and establish ways of validating or rejecting them.
  20. Using the main information and documentation techniques (ICT) as an essential tool for the analysis.
  21. Working autonomously.
  22. Working by using quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques in order to apply them to research processes.
  23. 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.

Activities and Methodology

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 

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.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Final exam 40 0 0 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17, 18, 21
Practices 30 0 0 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23
final work 30 0 0 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23 

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.
 

Bibliography

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Arzheimer, K., Evans, J.,& Lewis-Beck, M. (2017). The Sage Handbook of Electoral Behaviour. London: Sage.

Astudillo, J., & Rodon, T. (2013). “El comportamiento electoral del votante en la mediana y las «paradojas» de la competición política española / The Electoral Behaviour of the Median Voter and the ‘Paradoxes’ of Spanish Political Competition”. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 144: 3-21. https://doi.org/10.5477/cis/reis.144.3

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Dalton, R. J., & Klingemann, H.-D. (2007). Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Inglehart, Ronald: El cambio cultural en las sociedades avanzadas Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 1991

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Mintz, A., Valentino, N. A., & Wayne, C. (2021). Beyond Rationality: Behavioral Political Science in the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press.

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Riba, Clara: El comportament electoral dual a Catalunya Revista Eines, estiu 2008

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Siegfried, André. Le Tableau politique de la France de l'Ouest sous la 3e République. Armand Colin, 1964

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Westwood, S. J., Iyengar, S., Malhotra, N., Lelkes, Y., & Levendusky, M. (2018). The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034


Software

Excel. SPPS i QGIS optional


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 50 English first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 50 English first semester afternoon