Informations du cours

The main objective of the course is to provide students with an understanding of the workings and underlying issues of welfare politics and social protection in advanced capitalist countries as one of the most contested issues of today. "The welfare state" here refers an activist state that seeks to regulate both civil society and the market. A common objective of these programs is to distribute economic resources more evenly and to ensure that all citizens enjoy a basic measure of economic security. Welfare policies include family policy with direct effects on gender equality, as well as attempts to regulate labor markets in order to promote employment. Here the tension created by globalization between job creation and social protection highlights the importance of understanding the interrelation between social protection schemes, production regimes and growth models. The interrelation of different institutions also has consequences for migration flows as well as for the resources and opportunities of migrants, making migration into an important sub-topic of welfare politics. The welfare state is a central topic of study in the political science sub-discipline known as political economy, which studies the interaction between states and markets, as well as its implications for the distribution of welfare among individuals. The course will cover major areas within contemporary research on the welfare state from a global perspective, including the different types of welfare states found among advanced industrialized nations, the complex interaction between states and markets that is at the core of all re-distributive politics, the changing dynamics of industrial relations and labor markets in current times of economic transformation, gender aspects of welfare politics and, finally, the new challenges to welfare states posed by globalization, international migration and regional integration. Upon completing the course, students will have developed an ability to read, interpret and formulate ideas in relation to advanced texts in the areas of political economy and welfare politics. Students will also have developed good skills in communicating these ideas in oral and written scientific form.

Instruction

The teaching in the course will take three main forms: lectures, intros and seminars. During the lectures, the teacher will present the course material to students in order to guide and facilitate their understanding of it. Seminars will allow students the opportunity to discuss the readings with the teacher and their peers, thereby facilitating an active and self-initiated learning process. The intros will be prepared by the students through essays. Language of instruction will be English. Essays may be written in German or French.

Assessment

Course grading builds on the combination of 1) an essay of max 2000 words excl. references and title page due to be submitted electronically (via moodle) no later than November 29 and 2) an oral presentation of 10 minutes based on the essay in connection to topics 5, 6, 7 or 8.

Active participation during the course will contribute to the grading. Active participation includes the submission of short written responses (max 250 words), submitted (via moodle) no later than November 15, to questions on the readings for Topic 1 to 4. Questions will be posted along with the readings on moodle. The grading of the essay is 70%, the presentation 30%. Active participation will be used to round the mark up or down. Students will be informed until 10.12.2017 if their performance was sufficient (or not). Insufficient grading may be revised once by means of the essay. Depending on the presentation, discussion and essay, the revision may consist in a thorough revision of the essay submitted, or the elaboration of a particular aspect of the essay or of a related topic to the essay.Submission of the revision is due 21.12.2017.

Please note:

• The last inscription date for the course is 13.1.2017. Later inscriptions are not possible

• The secretariat will deregister those students from the course, who have not completed all the course grading requirements until 22.12.2017. 
  (Wer bis zum 22.12.2017 die im Syllabus geforderten Leistungsnachweise der laufenden Lernkontrollen nicht erbracht hat, wird vom Kurs ausgetragen.)