Logo UAB

Democracy and Citizenship

Code: 42270 ECTS Credits: 10
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
4313335 Political Science OB 0

Contact

Name:
John Robert Etherington
Email:
john.etherington@uab.cat

Teachers

John Robert Etherington
Eva Kristine Ostergaard-Nielsen
Enrique Hernandez Perez
Daniel Edmiston

Teaching groups languages

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


Prerequisites

Students are required to have prior training corresponding to a bachelor in Political Science or other closely related subject.

For students new to Political Science, the following texts provide good background for some of themes that will be dealt with in this module:

    • Held, D. (various editions) Models of Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
    • Diamond L. & M. F. Plattner, eds., (2009), Democracy. A Reader, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
    • Dahl, R.A., Shapiro, I., Cheibub J.A. (2003), eds., The Democracy Sourcebook, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: The MIT Press. Available here. 

Objectives and Contextualisation

In many ways, political science can trace its origins back to the attempts by thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle to come to terms with the concepts of democracy and citizenship as they emerged in the Ancient Greek poleis, particularly that of Athens.

While modern liberal democracy functions in quite a different way from its ancient predecessor, the normative, theoretical and empirical preoccupations of the Ancients have continued to inform modern debates on democracy and citizenship, concerned as they are with questions such as regime change, political participation, citizen rights, and institutional arrangements. In addition, other questions, such as the increasing democratic demands of citizens, have become central to debates surrounding the functioning of liberal democratic systems.

The purpose of this module, then, is to present some of the main debates and approaches to understanding liberal democracy and citizenship as these have developed over time in the West, and to this end the module is divided into five parts. The first analyses the relationship between capitalsim and liberal democracy; the second part deals with the quality of democracy at the aggregate level; the third part analyse the meaning of citizenship in today's democracies, and in particular citizen participation in the face of current social and economic challenges to modern welfare states; in the fourth part, we analyse the potential for migration to question notions of citizenship embedded in nation states; and finally the fifth part explores the interrelationship between the climate crisis and democratic systems. 

At the end of the module, students are expected to be able to demonstrate a thorough understanding of a wide range of theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches to the study of themes related to the concepts democracy and citizenship.


Competences

  • Analyse the behaviour and political attitudes of the public and the political communication processes in which they are immersed.
  • Analyse the main economic, social and political challenges facing contemporary democracies.
  • Applied theoretical knowledge acquired from the analysis of real situation and using political analysis generate useful orientations for decision-making.
  • Demonstration reading comprehension for specialist texts in English.
  • Design and write projects and technical and academic reports autonomously using the appropriate terminology, arguments and analytical tools in each case.
  • Possess and understand knowledge that provides a basis or opportunity for originality in the development and/or application of ideas, often in a research context.
  • Recognise the complexity of politics today, its diversity and the tensions to which it is exposed, with special emphasis on the Spanish and European contexts.
  • Student should possess the learning skills that enable them to continue studying in a way that is largely student led or independent.
  • Students should be able to integrate knowledge and face the complexity of making judgements based on information that may be incomplete or limited and includes reflections on the social and ethical responsibilities associated with the application of their knowledge and judgements.
  • Understand the design, operation and consequences of the political institutions and their relation to processes of governance.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analyse the level of democratic quality in a political system.
  2. Analyse the way in which advanced democracies changeover time.
  3. Demonstration reading comprehension for specialist texts in English.
  4. Describe the characteristics of political culture and identify their explanations and consequences.
  5. Design and write projects and technical and academic reports autonomously using the appropriate terminology, arguments and analytical tools in each case.
  6. Identify the way in which current phenomena such as globalisation, cultural diversity and the development of new technology affect democratic systems.
  7. Identify the debates on public opinion, political communication and democracy.
  8. Identify the different dimensions of the concept of democracy, its contradictions and the debates accompanying them.
  9. Identify the different factors and variables that may be involved in the appearance, stability and crisis of a democratic system.
  10. Identify the different practical implications of the theories of democracy.
  11. Identify the importance of specific political, economic and institutional contexts for democratic stability.
  12. Identify the modes of political participation , the factors that explain them and their consequences for democracy.
  13. Possess and understand knowledge that provides a basis or opportunity for originality in the development and/or application of ideas, often in a research context.
  14. Student should possess the learning skills that enable them to continue studying in a way that is largely student led or independent.
  15. Students should be able to integrate knowledge and face the complexity of making judgements based on information that may be incomplete or limited and includes reflections on the social and ethical responsibilities associated with the application of their knowledge and judgements.
  16. Understand the different conceptions of the concept of citizenship and their implications.
  17. Understand the different existing models of democracy, their institutional characteristics and their implications.
  18. Understand the tensions between participation and representation, the debates on political disenchantment and the crisis of representation.

Content

Introduction. Democracy and Citizenship: questions new and old (J. Etherington)

The aim of this introductory class is to give an overview of the study of democracy and citizenship in order to provide context for the themes that we shall be studying in this module. The session then presents the different parts of the module, before discussing the formal aspects involved.

Part 1. Capitalism and Democracy (J. Etherington) (5 sessions).

• Capitalism and Democracy: conceptual, theoretical and historical considerations.

• The democratic control of capitalism after 1945

• The challenge of neoliberalism for democracy from 1970

• Capitalism and democracy: current trends

 

Part 2. Does Democracy Really Work? (E. Hernández) (5 sessions)

• The state of democracy

• Support for democracy and growing discontent: Is democracy still the only game in town?

• What type of democracy? The unfulfilled democratic ideal

• The role of citizens in democratic backsliding

• Elites and liberal institutions

 

Part 3. Citizenship, inequality and globalization (D. Edmiston) (5 sessions)

  • T.H. Marshall’s account of citizenship
  • Prospects for civic participation and democracy
  • Status, habitus and citizenship
  • Activist politics for and against social citizenship
  • Globalisation and citizenship

 

 

Part 4. The External Dimension of Democratization (E. Østergaard) (2 sessions)

• Migrations and democratization

• Diasporas and transnational voting rights

 

Part 5. Democracy and Climate Change (J. Etherington) (6 sessions)

• Climate change anddemocracy: theoretical and empirical considerations

• The consequences of climate change for democracy and democratization

• Authoritarian responsestoclimate change

• The performance of democracies regarding the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change

  • Alternative democratic forms as a response to climate change

 


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lectures and seminars 63 2.52 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18
Type: Supervised      
Tutorials 50 2 3, 13, 15
Type: Autonomous      
Preparation of assigned readings 100 4 3, 13
Preparation of course assignments 34.5 1.38 5, 13, 14, 15

This course emphasizes active student participation in class, tutorials, continuous evaluation through the elaboration and evaluation of assignments related to the different dimensions of the 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 Essay 35% 2 0.08 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
In-class participation 20% 0.1 0 1, 13, 14, 15
Short essays 45% 0.4 0.02 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

In this module, the main emphasis is on continuous assessment in order to ensure that the different dimensions and concepts related to the sessions are taken on board by students as we progress through the module. This is complemented by a final essay. Evaluation is based on the following criteria:

  • Capacity to synthesize the relevant literature
  • Capacity to critically evaluate the relevant literature
  • Coherence of the argument
  • Originality
  • Formal aspects, with special reference to correct citation and academic style

As noted in the Students Guide, we are committed to avoiding plagiarism, and as such every effort is made to detect and punish such cases. Anti-plagiarism software will be used to check every submission.

The evaluation is divided into the following elements:

a) Short essays (45%): during the period students will write 3 short essays (maximum 1200 words each). Students must write a short essay for Part 1, a short essay for either Part 2 or Part 3, and a short essay for either Part 4 or Part 5. Short essay questions will be posted on the Virtual Campus before the end of each part of the module along with submission deadlines. 

b) Final essay (35%): At the end of the course the instructors will post a set of research questions related to each part of the module. Students will have to answer one of these questions in an essay of not more than 2500 words. 

c) In-class participation (20%): Students are expected to have prepared the assigned readingsbefore coming to class and to take an active part in the sessions. It is compulsory to attend to a minimum of 80% of the sessions in order to pass thismodule.

Feedback: Comments on work will be available three weeks at the latest after submission. Please do not hesitate to contact the professors for this feedback.

Submission: Please submit your short essays and final essay through the Campus Virtual tasks section, where all graded submissions will be analyzed by the anti-plagiarism software.

Grading: All submissions will be graded with a numeric grade ranging from 0 to 10, being 10 the best grade.

Late submissions policy: A -1 point grade penalty will be applied for each day that a student is late with a graded submission.


Bibliography

 

  • Macpherson, C.W. (various editions) The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy. Oxford. OUP
  • Held, D. (various editions) Models of Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press

 

  • Polanyi, K (various editions) The Great Transformation
  • Marx, K. (Capital. Volume 1
  • Harvey, D. (2007) Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Blyth, M. (2002) Great Transformations : Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hopkin, J. (2020) Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies. New York: Oxford Academic Press)
  • Streeck, W. (2014) Buying Time : the Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. London: Verso.

 

  • Przeworski, Adam. 2024. “Who Decides What Is Democratic?” Journal of Democracy 35(3): 5–16.
  • Angiolillo, Fabio, Martin Lundstedt, Marina Nord, and Staffan I. Lindberg. Forthcoming. “State of the World 2023: Democracy Winning and Losing at the Ballot.” Democratization doi:10.1080/13510347.2024.2341435.
  • Little, Andrew T., and Anne Meng. 2024. “Measuring Democratic Backsliding.” PS: Political Science & Politics 57(2): 149–61.
  • Norris, Pippa. 2011. Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 2
  • Wuttke, Alexander, Konstantin Gavras, and Harald Schoen. 2022. “Have Europeans Grown Tired of Democracy? New Evidence from Eighteen Consolidated Democracies, 1981–2018.” British Journal of Political Science 52(1): 416–28.
  • Foa, Roberto Stefan, A. Klassen, M. Slade, A. Rand, and R. Collins. 2020. “The Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report 2020.” Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge, January.
  • Foa, Roberto Stefan, and Yascha Mounk. 2017. “The Signs of Deconsolidation.” Journal of Democracy 28(1): 5–15. 
  • Adserà, Alicia, Andreu Arenas, and Carles Boix. 2023. “Estimating the Value of Democracy Relative to Other Institutional and Economic Outcomes among Citizens in Brazil, France, and the United States.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120(48): e2306168120.
  • Lijphart, Arend. 1999. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press. Chapters 2 and 3.
  • Anderson, Christopher J., and Christine A. Guillory. 1997. “Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems.” American Political Science Review 91(1): 66–81.
  • König, Pascal D., Markus B. Siewert, and Kathrin Ackermann. 2022. “Conceptualizing and Measuring Citizens’ Preferences for Democracy: Taking Stock of Three Decades of Research in a Fragmented Field.” Comparative Political Studies 55(12): 2015–49.
  • Ferrín, Mónica, and Enrique Hernández. 2021. “Preferences for Consensus and Majoritarian Democracy: Long- and Short-Term Influences.” European Political Science Review 13(2): 209–25.
  • Svolik, Milan W. 2019. “Polarization versus Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 30(3): 20–32.
  • Krishnarajan, Suthan. 2023. “Rationalizing Democracy: The Perceptual Bias and (Un)Democratic Behavior.” American Political Science Review 117(2): 474–96.
  • Avramovska, Elena, Johanna Lutz, Filip Milačić, and Milan W. Svolik. 2022. IDENTITY, PARTISANSHIP, POLARIZATION. How Democratically Elected Politicians Get Away with Autocratizing Their Country. Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung.
  • Frederiksen, Kristian Vrede Skaaning. 2024. “Do Partisanship and Policy Agreement Make Citizens Tolerate Undemocratic Behavior?” The Journal of Politics 86(2): 766–81.
  • Jacob, Marc S. 2024. “Citizens as a Democratic Safeguard? The Sequence of Sanctioning Elite Attacks on Democracy.” American Journal of Political Science n/a(n/a). doi:10.1111/ajps.12847.
  • Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2019. How Democracies Die. Crown. Chapter 5.
  • Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2023. Tyranny of the Minority: How to Reverse an Authoritarian Turn, and Forge a Democracy for All. Random House.  Chapters 5-6.
  • Gandhi, Jennifer. 2019. “The Institutional Roots of Democratic Backsliding.” The Journal of Politics 81(1): e11–16. 
  • Clayton, Katherine, Nicholas T. Davis, Brendan Nyhan, Ethan Porter, Timothy J. Ryan, and Thomas J. Wood. 2021. “Elite Rhetoric Can Undermine Democratic Norms.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(23): e2024125118

 

  • Isin, E. & Wood. P. (1999) ‘Modern Citizenship: Civic, Political and Social’. In: Citizenship and Identity, SAGE Publications, pp. 34-53. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uab/detail.action?docID=1024043.
  • Bulmer, M. I., & Rees, A. (2016). Citizenship today: The contemporary relevance of TH Marshall. Routledge.
  • Marshall, T. H., & Bottomore, T. (1992). Citizenship and Social Class. Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt18mvns1
  • Offe, C. (1982) ‘Some contradictions of the modern welfare state’. Critical Social Policy, 2(5): 7-16.
  • Lötter, H. (2008) ‘Poverty as threat to democratic values.’ Public Affairs Quarterly, 22(2): 177-195.
  • White, S. (2004) ‘Social Minimum’. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Available at: https://seop.illc.uva.nl/entries/social-minimum/
  • Ross, M. (2006) ‘Is Democracy Good for the Poor?’, American Journal of Political Science, 50(4): 860–74.
  • Plant, R. (1988) 'Needs, agency and welfare rights', in DONALD, M. T. (ed.) Rights and Welfare: the theory of the welfare state. Westview Press, pp. 55-74.
  • White, S. G. (2003) The civic minimum: On the rights and obligations of economic citizenship. Oxford University Press.
  • Edmiston, D., & Humpage, L. (2018) ‘Resistance or resignation to welfare reform? The activist politics for and against social citizenship’. Policy & Politics, 46(3): 467-484.
  • Isin, E. (2008) ‘Theorizing acts of citizenship’. In: Isin, Engin F. and Nielsen, Greg M. eds. Acts of Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 15–43.
  • Ellison, N. (2000) 'Proactive and Defensive Engagement: Social Citizenship in a Changing Public Sphere'. Sociological Research Online, 53. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.513
  • Isin, E. & Turner, B. (2002) Handbook of Citizenship Studies, London: Sage.
  • Ishkanian, Armine (2022) Social movements and social policy: new research horizons. Journal of Social Policy, 51 (3). 582 - 595. 
  • Turner, J. (2016) ‘(En) gendering the political: Citizenship from marginal spaces’. Citizenship Studies, 20(2): 141-155.
  • Burchardt, T. (2001) The social division of welfare: some reflections on the search for equity, In: Alcock, P., Glennerster, H., and Oakley, A. (eds.) Welfare and wellbeing: Richard Titmuss's contribution to social policy, Policy Press.
  • Fraser, N. (1998) ‘Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, Participation’. WZB Discussion Paper, 98-108, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).
  • Lister, R., Smith, N., Middleton, S., et al. (2003) 'Young people talk about citizenship: empirical perspectives on theoretical and political debates', Citizenship studies, 7(2): 235-253.
  • Fairfield, T. (2013) ‘Going where the money is: Strategies for taxing economic elites in unequal democracies’. World Development, 47: 42-57.
  • Ong, A. (2006) ‘Mutations in Citizenship’. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3): 499-505
  • Clarke, J., Coll, K., Dagnino, E., et al. (2014) Disputing Citizenship, Policy Press.
  • Ong, A. (1999). Flexible citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality. Duke University Press.
  • Sassen, S. (2006) Territory, authority, rights: From medieval to global assemblages. Cambridge University Press.

 

  • Kapur, D. (2014), ‘Political Effects of International Migration’, Annual Review of Political Science, 17, pp. 479–502. 
  • Escriba-Folch A. et al, Meseguer C., Wright, J. (2018), Remittances and protest in dictatorships, American Journal of Political Science.  
  • Pérez-Armendáriz, C. (2014), ‘Cross-Border Discussions and Political Behavior in Migrant-Sending Countries’, Studies of Comparative International Development,  49:pp. 67–88. 
  • Careja, R and Emmenegger, P. Making Democratic Citizens: The Effects of Migration Experience on Political Attitudes in Central and Eastern Europe, Comparative Political Studies 45(7) 875 –902  
  • Rother, S. (2009). ‘Changed in Migration? Philippine Return Migrants and (Un) Democratic Remittances’, European Journal of East Asian Studies, 8 (2) 245-275.  
  • Lafleur, J-M. (2012), ‘Why do states enfranchise citizens abroad? Comparative insights from Italy, Mexico and Belgium’, Global Networks, 11:4, 481-501 
  • Brand, L. (2014) ‘Arab uprisings and the changing frontiers of transnational citizenship: Voting from abroad in political transitions’, Political Geography, 41, pp. 54.
  • Burgess, K. (2018) ‘States or Parties? Emigrant outreach and transnational engagement’, International Political Science Review, 29: 3, pp. 369-383. 
  • Ostergaard-Nielsen, E, Ciornei I and Lafleur, J (2019), ‘Why do parties support emigrant voting rights?’ European Political Science Review, 11(3), pp. 377-394. 

 

  • Peter Burnell (2012) “Democracy, democratization and climate change: complex relationships”, Democratization, 19:5, 813-842. 
  • Herman, P.F. and Treverton, G. (2009) “The Political Consequences of Climate Change”. Survival, 51:2, 137-148. 
  • Hendrix, C.S. and Haggard, S. (2015) “Global food prices, regime type, and urban unrest in the developing world”. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 52, No. 2 (March), pp. 143-157.
  • Mittiga, R. (2022) “Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change”. American Political Science Review, 116(3), 998-1011.
  • Beeson M (2018) “Coming to terms with the authoritarian alternative: the implications and motivations of China’s environmental policies”. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 34–46.  
  • Povitkina, M. (2018) “The Limits of Democracy in Tackling Climate Change”, Environmental Politics, Vol 27, No. 3, 411–432.
  • Finnegan, J. (2019) “Institutions, climate change, and the foundations of longterm policymaking”. Working Paper, Grantham Institute. LSE.

Software

None


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TEm) Theory (master) 1 English first semester afternoon