MATHEMATICS (TURKISH, PHD)
PhD TR-NQF-HE: Level 8 QF-EHEA: Third Cycle EQF-LLL: Level 8

Course Introduction and Application Information

Course Code Course Name Semester Theoretical Practical Credit ECTS
POL6031 Elector Behavior Research Fall 3 0 3 12
The course opens with the approval of the Department at the beginning of each semester

Basic information

Language of instruction: En
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
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.

Learning Outputs

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

Course Content

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.

Weekly Detailed Course Contents

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

Sources

Course Notes: 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:

Evaluation System

Semester Requirements Number of Activities Level of Contribution
Attendance 14 % 20
Laboratory % 0
Application % 0
Field Work % 0
Special Course Internship (Work Placement) % 0
Quizzes % 0
Homework Assignments 2 % 20
Presentation % 0
Project % 0
Seminar % 0
Midterms % 0
Preliminary Jury % 0
Final 1 % 60
Paper Submission % 0
Jury % 0
Bütünleme % 0
Total % 100
PERCENTAGE OF SEMESTER WORK % 40
PERCENTAGE OF FINAL WORK % 60
Total % 100

ECTS / Workload Table

Activities Number of Activities Workload
Course Hours 14 42
Laboratory
Application 14 56
Special Course Internship (Work Placement)
Field Work
Study Hours Out of Class 14 77
Presentations / Seminar
Project
Homework Assignments
Quizzes
Preliminary Jury
Midterms
Paper Submission
Jury
Final
Total Workload 175

Contribution of Learning Outcomes to Programme Outcomes

No Effect 1 Lowest 2 Low 3 Average 4 High 5 Highest
           
Program Outcomes Level of Contribution