Positive political theory

In the first module the theoretical assumptions of the rational choice approach will be briefly discussed and some simple examples of application of the theory will be illustrated. Some lessons will be dedicated to the birth of the State and the transition to the Democracy. An introduction to the spatial models of voting and to the theory of veto players will conclude this part. In the second module we will address the effect of the main political institutions in the modern democracy. The topics of this module will be: the forms of representative government, the law making process , the government coalition formation , the referendum.
The third part of the course will equally divided between the study of the interaction between politician bureaucrats and courts, the European Union and an introduction to the cooperation' dilemmas that characterize many political phenomena.