| POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (ENGLISH, PHD) | |||||
| PhD | TR-NQF-HE: Level 8 | QF-EHEA: Third Cycle | EQF-LLL: Level 8 | ||
| Course Code | Course Name | Semester | Theoretical | Practical | Credit | ECTS |
| POL6031 | Elector Behavior Research | Fall | 3 | 0 | 3 | 12 |
| This catalog is for information purposes. Course status is determined by the relevant department at the beginning of semester. |
| Language of instruction: | English |
| Type of course: | Departmental Elective |
| Course Level: | |
| Mode of Delivery: | Face to face |
| Course Coordinator : | Assoc. Prof. ESRA ALBAYRAKOĞLU |
| Course Lecturer(s): |
Prof. Dr. YILMAZ ESMER |
| Recommended Optional Program Components: | none |
| Course Objectives: | This course serves students with an interest in political communication and cognition; comparative politics; voting behavior and public opinion; empirical democratic theory and comparative political economy; and the methodology of quantitative research. It focuses on how citizens, with their limited resources and time available for engaging with politics, perform their role as ultimate decision-makers in democratic politics. |
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The students who have succeeded in this course; will earn following abilities: Familiarity with theories, concepts, empirical regularities and research strategies in political behavior research Ability to conceive, elaborate and defend campaign tools with reference to what scholarly analyses reveal about voting behavior and public opinion Reason analytically, applying abstract models to complex empirical situations and engage with different intellectual traditions, subfields, research designs and methodologies in the social sciences Improved ability to design high quality original academic or applied research in a rigorous and consistent manner |
| The course will ask how social cleavages, economic conditions, ideology, political issues, party identification, factual information, campaigns and various other factors impact on how voters decide, and what all this implies for the quality of democracy and citizen influence on public policy. |
| Week | Subject | Related Preparation |
| 1) | The rationality assumption in political research and its alternatives | |
| 2) | The instrumental rationality assumption in survey research and the emergence of the “sociological” and “psychological” models as empirically-motivated alternatives | |
| 3) | Reinterpreting the impact of partisanship, ideology and social group membership as cue-taking | |
| 4) | Motivational and cognitive accounts of party identification | |
| 5) | Quasi-rational response-stimulus models of the electoral process | |
| 6) | Cognitive and motivational limits to self-interested behavior in mass politics | |
| 7) | Review of the course | |
| 8) | Do elections give mandates to enact specific policies? | |
| 9) | How do voters relate information and policy preferences to vote choice? | |
| 10) | The long road from minimal to massive media effect theories in communication research | |
| 11) | The impact of public opinion and elections on governments and policy choices in democracies | |
| 12) | Do voters have positional policy preferences after all? How are they structured? | |
| 13) | Taking stock and outlook to the state of the art | |
| 14) | Review of the course |
| Course Notes / Textbooks: | Helena Catt Voting Behaviour: A Radical Critique (London, Leicester University Press, 1996) Patrick Dunleavy "Political Behavior: Institutional and Experimental Approaches", in A New Handbook in Political Science, ed. by Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 276-93) pp. 202-12 of David Broughton's Public Opinion Polling and Politics in Britain (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995) and pp. 1-26 of David Denver's Elections and Voting Behaviour in Britain(London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2nd ed. 1994). Bartels, Larry M. 2008. "The Study of Electoral Behavior." Borgida, Eugene, Christopher M. Federico, and John L. Sullivan, eds. 2009. The Political Psychology of Democratic Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eijk, Cees van der, and Mark Franklin. 2009. Elections and Voters. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Evans, Jocelyn A.J. 2004. Voters and Voting: An Introduction. London: Sage. Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, ed. 2009. The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Andre, Blais. 2010. "Making Electoral Democracy Work." Electoral Studies 29 (1): 169-170. Thomassen, Jacques, ed. 2005. The European Voter: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
| References: |
| Semester Requirements | Number of Activities | Level of Contribution |
| Attendance | 14 | % 20 |
| Homework Assignments | 2 | % 20 |
| Final | 1 | % 60 |
| Total | % 100 | |
| PERCENTAGE OF SEMESTER WORK | % 40 | |
| PERCENTAGE OF FINAL WORK | % 60 | |
| Total | % 100 | |
| Activities | Number of Activities | Workload |
| Course Hours | 14 | 42 |
| Application | 14 | 56 |
| Study Hours Out of Class | 14 | 77 |
| Total Workload | 175 | |
| No Effect | 1 Lowest | 2 Low | 3 Average | 4 High | 5 Highest |
| Program Outcomes | Level of Contribution | |
| 1) | Have the social, scientific and ethical values under any circumstances with related to the field of Political Science and International Relations in data collection, interpretation, and dissemination stage also information to develop and deepen the level of expertise. | |
| 2) | Students can critically evaluate the political developments, strategies and practical outcomes on the international political arena, based on theoretical knowledge. | |
| 3) | Have the knowledge of the nation state to the present day about geographical, institutional, structural, conceptual and theoretical development of the international relations; the political, economic and juridical foundation of the state. Evaluated to be critical a variety of security issues, strategies, and practical consequences in the international arena. | |
| 4) | Possess the ability to recognize problems and create original solutions through independent and critical thinking, as well as the ability to develop theoretical concepts. In addition, a knowledge of recent advances within one's field and in related areas, an understanding of relevant research methodologies and techniques and their appropriate application within one's research field. | |
| 5) | Through completion of advanced course work and rigorous skills training, the doctoral program prepares students to make original contributions to the knowledge of Political Science and to interpret and present the results of such research. | |
| 6) | Distinguish among and apply the distinct levels of analysis and the leading schools of thought in political science and international relations to understand and explain international political phenomena | |
| 7) | Distinguish among leading schools of thought in comparative politics and apply and critically discuss these approaches in understanding and explaining domestic political phenomena |