Syllabus
The class will be held over three days. The first one will be dedicated to introducing the topic of electoral sociology, starting from its precursors, and the first demonstrations that pictured the vote as a social phenomenon. We will cover classics from electoral geography and the Columbia model of voting, and track their relevance for explaining voting behaviours of today, in a media-heavy environment.
The second day will see us move to a more refined understanding of the social determination of voting, as we follow the Michigan model and take into accounts the psychological and cognitive aspects of identifications. This will allow us to explore the influences of party identification and political competence, as well as class, generation, gender and race.
Finally, we will shift our attention towards rational-choice theory and reflect on the place self-determination can have in voting. We will dedicate our last session to a discussion in which we will try to use the different theories we will have covered to explain the rising phenomenon of abstention. We will then close the class by opening up on further questions.
Annotation
This seminar is designed to give students broad and wide-sweeping knowledge about the field of electoral sociology, covering both its most classic works, and some of its recent developments. The class does not focus on any specific country case – though some countries might be more often used as case-studies than others – and instead aims at understanding the salient issues and theoretical divides at play in the field in general.