Pippa Norris Harvard University Classes with full syllabi, class notes and further resources
Pippa Norris Teaching www.pippanorris.com

John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Home What's New? Biography Books Articles Classes Data
STM103 API413 API414
Search this website
       
Classes 2008-2009
  The syllabi, class notes, and further resources are provided on the home pages for each of these classes (click below).

API-413

API413  Challenges of democratization Fall 2008

Examines democracy in terms of competition, participation, and civil and political rights. Covers such questions as: What are the alternative conceptions of democracy? What democratic indices are available, and what do they indicate about worldwide trends in democratization? What underlying cultural, economic, and social conditions promote democracy? What is the role of institutions, such as parties, the media, the electoral system, and the legal system? What are the consequences of democratization for economic growth and welfare or for international peace and cooperation? The course takes a broadly comparative perspective, looking at both established and emerging democracies from all regions of the world. All classes are posted on the Web and extensive use is made of Internet resources.

 

STM-103

STM103 Good governance and democratization Spring 2009

This course provides insights into why democratic governance matters, discusses what performance indicators and analytical benchmarks are available, compares what strategies have commonly been implemented by a range of different agencies, and applies policy recommendations to specific cases. It covers the core principles, analytical theories, practical tools, and applied methods useful for understanding these issues. 

 

API-414

API414 Citizen Politics Spring 2009

This course provides the analytical knowledge and practical skills to understand patterns of mass activism in democratic politics worldwide, including in established and newer democracies. The course covers the nature of mass belief systems, modes of political activism and protest politics, value change and ideological orientations, electoral behavior, the structure of political alignments, confidence in government, issues of political representation, and the implications of citizen politics for democratic institutions. The first half of the course will review the research literature and the second will apply these in projects using cross-national time-series survey datasets, such as the World Values Survey, the Afro-barometer, the Latin-Barometer, the Euro-Barometer, and the European Social Survey. The course will also provide an introduction to using Stata and/or SPSS for survey analysis.

 

Classes from previous years

The syllabi are provided for these courses but not the class notes or further resources

Gov20 Gov-20 Introduction to Comparative Politics Fall 2005

This FAS course for undergraduates in the Government Department provides an introduction to key theoretical frameworks, concepts, and analytical methods commonly used today in comparative politics. The class focuses upon some of the seminal contemporary works in the field and evaluates them in the light of the arguments of their critics.

 

API216

API216 Analyzing elections and public opinion Spring 2004

This course provides the core conceptual tools, theoretical insights, and practical skills for analyzing elections, voting behavior, and public opinion. It is designed for careers in public opinion polling and survey research, campaign management, broadcasting and journalism, and as the foundation for policy analysis research.

PPP-185

PPP185 Internet design for democracy Fall 2001

The course for MPA/MPP students focuses on the problem of the democratic divide, and the practical steps and applied techniques that can be used to maximize the democratic potential of the new technology. For enthusiasts, the Internet promises to provide new forms of horizontal and vertical communication that will enrich engagement, deliberation and democracy in the public sphere. But will Internet resources be open to everyone? The central issue generating widespread concern in the emergent Information Age has been indications of a growing ‘digital divide’ between Internet-haves and have-nots.  A global divide has become strikingly evident in the chasm between industrialized and developing societies. A social divide is apparent in the access of rich and poor in each nation, as well as by generation, race and gender. And within the online community, a democratic divide is emerging between those who do, and do not, use Internet resources to engage, mobilize, and participate in public life. This courses focuses on understanding these issues and what can be done in practice via the Net to promote opportunities for effective civic engagement and democratic policymaking.

PPP-412

Political Communication in Comparative Perspective

Globalization and new technologies are rapidly transforming the process of political communications around the world. The end of the Television Age and the rise of the Internet Era raises many issues: are newspapers and television as we know them in terminal decline, as some expect, or will the Internet just supplement, not replace, the old media? Are parties and elections being transformed by new forms of campaign communications? What are the effects of newspapers, television, the Net and party campaigns on civic engagement? Are the new communication technologies producing a ‘globalization’ or ‘Americanization’ of popular culture, or a more complex localization and fragmentation of media outlets and local identities? And what are the consequences of all these developments for the process of governance in a wired world?

This course provides new insights and practical analysis to understand these issues focusing on recent developments in the structure, contents and impact of political communications in many countries around the world. A wide range of post-industrial and developing countries are compared, including the United States. Your policy analysis report focuses on one of issues covered in the course in the country(s)/region of your choice.

Home What's New? Biography Books Articles Classes Data

Copyright 2008 Pippa Norris, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138. w


Last updated 08/02/2008