Electoral Behavior and Party Competition: Continuity and Change in Western Europe

This course is a weekly seminar course for graduate students taught at the University of Lucerne in the Spring term of 2023. The course explores the main theories of political behavior and party competition by focusing on party system change. It reviews the different ‘transformation waves’ that have shaped Western European party systems from the 1960s until now and provides an overview of the main demand and supply-side explanations. The goal is to provide students with the conceptual and empirical tools to analyse patterns of political behavior and party competition, with a focus on the factors that may lead to electoral change. More information about the course can be found here.