Universität Luzern

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Culture and Politics

Dozent/in	Álvaro Canalejo-Molero, PhD
Veranstaltungsart	Hauptseminar
Code	FS251466
Semester	Frühjahrssemester 2025
Durchführender Fachbereich	Politikwissenschaft
Studienstufe	Bachelor Master
Termin/e	Mi, 26.02.2025, 12:15 - 14:00 Uhr, HS 5 Fr, 28.02.2025, 09:15 - 17:00 Uhr, 4.B02 Fr, 21.03.2025, 09:15 - 17:00 Uhr, 3.B55 Fr, 11.04.2025, 09:15 - 17:00 Uhr, 3.B55 Sa, 24.05.2025, 09:15 - 15:30 Uhr, 4.B02
Umfang	2 Semesterwochenstunden
Turnus	Blockveranstaltung
Inhalt	Content: Why citizens of Eastern Germany are more likely to vote for the radical right? Why do people turn out to vote even if their likelihood of influencing the election outcome is minimal? How is it possible that support for LGBTQi+ policies increases simultaneously with support for conservative parties? Traditional political science accounts focusing on voters' rationality and institutions fall short of explanatory power to answer these and related questions. Instead, cultural explanations are gaining prominence, and the increasing availability of digitalized historical and text data has provided the ground to test them systematically. Following this trend, this course introduces students to the developing subfield of Political Culture, with a particular focus on applications in political behavior topics. The course combines a well-curated reading list with introductory lectures and seminar discussions to foster critical thinking about the role of culture in politics. Students who take this course will acquire the skills to analyze political behavior from a cultural perspective, developing original research ideas and successful designs to test them. The course is organized as a block seminar that will run during the Spring term of 2025. Each block will consist of three/four sessions concentrated on Fridays. The first block will introduce the core conceptual tools in the study of political culture, such as the concepts of social norms, group identity or cultural transmission. The second and third blocks will then delve into specific political behavior topics revisited from a cultural perspective, such as voting preferences, electoral turnout or inter-group relations. We will also investigate the interaction between political and cultural change and assess the conditions under which they may reinforce or contain each other. Finally, students will present original ideas related to the course topics and a research design to test them.
Schlagworte	Gender/Diversity
E-Learning	https://lms.uzh.ch/url/RepositoryEntry/17675780109
Lernziele	By the end of this course, students will be able to: - (knowledge) approach political topics from a cultural perspective. They will have a clear notion of the concepts of social norms, social identity, cultural origins, transmission and persistence. Moreover, they will have a clear overview of the main cultural explanations of political behavior phenomena. - (competence - critical reading) read scientific articles critically, and connect ideas from different fields, such as cultural sociology, historical political economy, and political behavior, in an interdisciplinary manner. - (competence - research skills) develop original ideas, frame them within the relevant literature, turn them into testable hypotheses, and come up with feasible research designs to test them. - (competence - writing skills) write critical response papers to scientific articles on political culture topics. They will also be able to organize a research design plan meeting scientific standards. - (competence - communication) debate in front of and with their colleagues; communicate complex concepts effectively to a broad audience.
Voraussetzungen	Advanced level of English. Basic knowledge of statistics and quantitative research design is an asset but it is not required.
Sprache	Englisch
Anmeldung	*Wichtig* Um Credits zu erwerben ist die Anmeldung zur Lehrveranstaltung über das UniPortal zwingend erforderlich. Die Anmeldung ist ab zwei Wochen vor bis zwei Wochen nach Beginn des Semesters möglich. An- und Abmeldungen sind nach diesem Zeitraum nicht mehr möglich. Die genauen Anmeldedaten finden Sie hier: http://www.unilu.ch/ksf/semesterdaten
Prüfung	There is no written exam. The evaluation will take place via response papers to the readings, a written research proposal and an oral presentation of the proposal. To receive the credits, students are expected to fulfil the following criteria: 1. Attend all the sessions 2. Study the mandatory readings before each session 3. Participate actively during class 4. Write two response papers 5. Write a research proposal 6. Present their research proposal 7. Serve as discussant of one presentation
Abschlussform / Credits	Active participation, Presentation, Research design paper/ 4 Credits / 4 Credits
Hörer-/innen	Nach Vereinbarung
Kontakt	alvaro.canalejo@unilu.ch
Material	Individual laptop
Literatur	This list should be taken as orientative, since it might suffer changes before the beginning of the course: - Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33 (2–3), 61–83, discussion 83–135. - Jared Rubin (2020). Culture in Historical Political Economy. - Henrich, J. (2015). The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. - Lena, J. C., Lizardo, O., McDonnell, T. E., Mische, A., Tavory, I., Wherry, F. F. V., ... & Frye, M. (2019). Measuring culture. Columbia University Press. - Bicchieri, C. (2016). Norms in the wild: How to diagnose, measure, and change social norms. Oxford University Press. - Huddy, L. (2001). From Social to Political Identity: A Critical Examination of Social Identity Theory. Political Psychology, 22(1), 127–156. https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895X.00230 - Axelrod, R. (1997). The dissemination of culture: A model with local convergence and global polarization. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 41(2), 203–226. - Lowes, Sara. (2022).“Culture in Historical Political Economy”. National Bureau of Economic Research, no. w30511. - Ziblatt, D., Hilbig, H., & Bischof, D. (2023). Wealth of Tongues: Why Peripheral Regions Vote for the Radical Right in Germany. American Political Science Review, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055423000862 - Domènech, J., & Sánchez-Cuenca, I. (2022). The Long Shadow of Agrarian Conflict: Agrarian Inequality and Voting in Spain. British Journal of Political Science, 52(4), 1668–1688. - Gerber, A. S., Green, D. P., & Larimer, C. W. (2008). Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment. American Political Science Review, 102(1), 33–48. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000305540808009X - Doherty, D., Dowling, C. M., Gerber, A. S., & Huber, G. A. (2017). Are Voting Norms Conditional? How Electoral Context and Peer Behavior Shape the Social Returns to Voting. The Journal of Politics, 79(3), 1095–1100. https://doi.org/10.1086/691689 - Levendusky, M. S. (2018). Americans, Not Partisans: Can Priming American National Identity Reduce Affective Polarization? The Journal of Politics, 80(1), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1086/693987 - Turnbull-Dugarte, S. J., & López Ortega, A. (2023). Instrumentally Inclusive: The Political Psychology of Homonationalism. American Political Science Review, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055423000849 - Valentim, V. (2022). Political Stigmatization and Preference Falsification: Theory and Observational Evidence (SSRN Scholarly Paper 4023263). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4023263 - Dinas, E., Martínez, S., & Valentim, V. (2023). Social Norm Change, Political Symbols, and Expression of Stigmatized Preferences. The Journal of Politics. https://doi.org/10.1086/726951 - Bau, N. (2021). Can Policy Change Culture? Government Pension Plans and Traditional Kinship Practices. American Economic Review, 111(6), 1880–1917. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20190098 - Tankard, M. E., & Paluck, E. L. (2017). The effect of a Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage on social norms and personal attitudes. Psychological Science, 28(9), 1334–1344. - Gándara, N. (2023). ‘We are your pack’: Feminist Social Movements on Countering Violence Against Women - Anduiza, E., & Rico, G. (2022). Sexism and the Far-Right Vote: The Individual Dynamics of Gender Backlash. American Journal of Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12759