Syllabus for the course "Analysing British Politics"

1. Centre for British Studies
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
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Module 3: Law, Economics, and Politics
Analysing British Politics (ABP)
2428, Winter Term 2023/24, 2 ECTS
Syllabus
Details
Lecturer: Dr Paolo Chiocchetti (paolo.chiocchetti@hu-berlin.de)
Credits: 2 ECTS (10 sessions, preparation, participation, written assignment)
Type: seminar
Assessment: written assignment of 10,000 characters (3 March 2024)
Office hour: room 122, upon request
Moodle: https://moodle.hu-berlin.de/course/view.php?id=121475 (key: ABP23)
Course description
This course provides a brief introduction to the discipline of Political Science and the subfield
of British Politics. During the course, you will learn:
1. how political scientists approach political phenomena,
2. how the most common research methods work,
3. how to interpret and critique research findings, and
4. how to write a literature review.
Specifically, you will gain a first insight into five key research methods (qualitative content
analysis, qualitative interviewing, quantitative descriptive analysis, regression analysis, and
field experiments) and eight research topics (concepts of democracy, media representations,
capitalism, academic institutions, electoral systems, political attitudes, voting behaviour, and
ethnic discrimination).
The course is a discussion-based seminar relying on your active engagement with the
academic literature in empirical political analysis. You are expected to read, and reflect on,
the required readings before each session (11 papers, 232 pages) and to actively participate
in the seminar discussions in class with oral summaries, questions, critical comments, and
practical exercises (10 sessions). The required readings are indicated in the timetable below
and can be downloaded from Moodle. Moreover, you will have to apply the knowledge gained
by writing a literature review on a topic of your choice (10,000 characters, deadline 3 March
2024). Your final grade will reflect your performance in both the seminar discussions and the
written essay.

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Timetable and required readings
1. Introduction to political analysis
Thu. 26 October, 10:30–12:00, Room 105
Required reading: Heywood, A. (2013). ‘1. What is politics?’, in id. Politics. 4th ed. Basingstoke:
Palgrave MacMillan, 1–26.
2. Data and methods
Thu. 26 October, 13:00–14:30, Room 105
Required reading: Bryman, A. (2012). ‘3. Research designs’, in id. Social research methods. 4th
ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 45–77.
3. Qualitative content analysis: concepts of democracy
Tue. 31 October, 10:30–12:00, Room 105
Required reading: Wolff, J. (2023). ‘From the Varieties of Democracy to the defense of liberal
democracy: V-Dem and the reconstitution of liberal hegemony under threat’. Contemporary
Politics, 29(2)y 161-181.
4. Qualitative content analysis: media representations of Thatcher and May
Thu. 9 November, 10:30–12:00, Room 105
Required reading: Williams, B. E. (2021). ‘A tale of two women: A comparative gendered media
analysis of UK Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May’. Parliamentary Affairs,
74(2), 398-420.
5. Qualitative interviewing: the political influence of London’s financial sector
Thu. 23 November, 10:30–12:00, Room 105
Required reading: James, S., and Quaglia, L. (2019). ‘Brexit, the city and the contingent power
of finance’. New political economy, 24(2), 258-271.
6. Quantitative descriptive analysis: distribution of resources in British political studies
Thu. 30 November, 10:30–12:00, Room 105
Required reading: Gonzalez Ginocchio, B., Hindmoor, A., and Stanley, L. (2022). ‘Pluralism and
political studies in the UK: A pilot study into who gets what in the discipline’. Political Studies
Review, 20(1), 3-22.
7. Quantitative descriptive analysis: the effects of electoral systems
Mon. 11 December, 13:00–14:30, Room 105
Required reading: Norris, P. (1997). ‘Choosing electoral systems: proportional, majoritarian
and mixed systems’, International political science review, 18(3), 297-312.

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8. Quantitative descriptive analysis: political opinions of British left-leaning voters
Thu. 11 January, 10:30–12:00, Room 105
Required reading: Chiocchetti, P. (2023). ‘The Divided Left in the UK: Partisanship, Ideology,
and Class After Brexit’. In: Stedman, G. and Görisch, J. (eds) (2023). Affective polarisation:
social inequality in the UK after austerity, Brexit, and COVID-19. Bristol: Bristol University
Press.
9. Regression analysis: housing prices and Brexit voting behaviour
Wed. 31 January, 13:00–14:30, Room 105
Required reading: Adler, D., and Ansell, B. (2020). ‘Housing and populism’. West European
Politics, 43(2), 344-365.
10. Field experiment: hiring discrimination of ethnic minorities in the UK
Thu. 1 February, 10:45–12:15, Room 105
Required reading: Zwysen, W., Di Stasio, V., & Heath, A. (2021). ‘Ethnic penalties and hiring
discrimination: Comparing results from observational studies with field experiments in the
UK’. Sociology, 55(2), 263-282.
Final assignment
Sun. 3 March 2024, 24:00 (submission deadline)
Required reading: Knopf, J. W. (2006). Doing a literature review. PS: Political Science & Politics,
39(1), 127-132
To do: literature review on a topic of your choice, 10,000 characters
Final assignment: the literature review
The literature review should address a topic of your choice and have a length of 10,000
characters (approximately 1,500 words or 6 pages).
A useful short guide to writing a literature review is provided by Knopf (2006). The purpose is
to write not a simple collection of summaries of the existing academic works on a given topic,
but a focused and critical survey guided by a specific research question and teasing out
established wisdom, points of disagreements, gaps in our knowledge, and promising avenues
for future research.
Choose a well-delimited topic. Cast a wide net by searching for relevant publications on
GoogleScholar and within other publications (e.g. course syllabus, lists of references). Assess
their relevance and influence by looking at their type, title, abstract, year of publication, and
citation statistics. Ignore non-academic publications, prefer journal articles to books (good but
long to read), book chapters and reports (useful but not peer-reviewed), and other sources.
Select the most promising publications to read in full, aiming at a final list of references of no
more than 10 documents. Focus your discussion on a few selected works, using the remaining
documents to make specific points. Pick an author-year referencing style such as Harvard and
follow it consistently. Learn use the reference management software Zotero to keep track of

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your potential and actual references (manual management is more efficient for short
assignments, but the use of software is very useful for larger projects and sometimes a
requirement in job adverts). After writing a first draft, revise it repeatedly to strengthen your
argument, improve its structure and writing, and check for errors (e.g. grammar, list of
references). Adhere to the standards of academic integrity (any instance of plagiarism leads
to an automatic fail).
Further readings
Useful introductory articles or chapters on key research topics can be found below. You can
find most material in our library in electronic (catalogue) or physical (Semesterapparat)
format.
I General overviews
Bryman, A. (2012). Social research methods. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Caramani, D. (ed.) (2020). Comparative Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Flinders, M., Gamble, A., Kenny, M. (eds) (2009). The Oxford handbook of British Politics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heywood, A. (2013). Politics. 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jones, B., Norton, P., & Hertner, I. (eds) (2021). Politics UK. 10th ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
Journal Annual Review of Political Science (https://www.annualreviews.org/journal/polisci)
Book series Oxford Handbooks (https://academic.oup.com/oxford-handbooks-online)
II Specific overviews
The nature of politics
Leftwich, A. (ed.) (2004). What is Politics? The activity and its study. Cambridge: Polity.
Lukes, S. (2004). Power: a radical view. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Methods
Imai, K. (2017). Quantitative social science: an introduction. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Lowndes, V., Marsh, D. and Stoker, G. (2018). Theory and methods in Political Science. 4th ed.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stock, J. and Watson, M. (2020). Introduction to econometrics. 4th ed. London: Pearson.

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Political history
Brown, D., Pentland, G. and Crowcroft, R. (eds.) (2018). The Oxford handbook of Modern
British political history, 1800–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Childs, D. (2012). Britain since 1945: a political history. Abingdon: Routledge.
Political regimes and democracies
Anckar, C., and Fredriksson, C. (2019). ‘Classifying political regimes 1800–2016: A typology and
a new dataset’. European Political Science 18: 84-96.
Coppedge, M. et al. (2020). Varieties of democracy: measuring two centuries of political
change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Held, D. (2006). Models of democracy. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Political institutions
Flinders, M., Judge, D., Rhodes, R. A. W., & Vatter, A. (2022). ‘Stretched but not snapped’: A
response to Russell and Serban on retiring the ‘Westminster model’. Government and
opposition, 57(2): 353-369.
Lijphart, A. (2012) Patterns of democracy: government forms and performance in thirty-six
countries. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
Russell, M., & Serban, R. (2021). ‘The muddle of the ‘Westminster model’: A concept stretched
beyond repair’. Government and Opposition, 56(4): 744-764.
Sartori, G. (1997). Comparative constitutional engineering: an inquiry into structures,
incentives, and outcomes. New York: New York University Press.
Political attitudes and behaviour
Denver, D. and Johns, R. (2022). Elections and voters in Britain. 5th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Ford, R., Bale, T., Jennings, W., and Surridge, P. (2021). The British general election of 2019.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sobolewska, M., & Ford, R. (2020). Brexitland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Collective actors
Grant, Wyn (2018). Lobbying: an appraisal. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Self, R. C. (2014). Evolution of the British party system: 1885-1940. Abingdon: Routledge.
Street, J. (2021). Media, politics and democracy. 3rd ed. London: Bloomsbury.
Webb, P. and Bale, T. (2021). The modern British party system. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Political ideologies
Heywood, A. (2021). Political ideologies: an introduction. 7th ed. London: Bloomsbury.

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Social structures
Punch, S., Marsh, I., Keating, M., and Harten, J. (eds) (2013). Sociology: making sense of
society. 5th ed. London: Pearson.
Economic structures
Crafts, N. (2018). Forging ahead, falling behind and fighting back: British economic growth
from the industrial revolution to the financial crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ravenhill, J. (ed) (2017). Global political economy. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Public policy
Beech, M. and Lee, S. (eds) (2023). Conservative governments in the age of Brexit. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Cairney, P. (ed) (2019). Understanding public policy: theories and issues. London: Bloomsbury.
III Primary sources
Non-survey data
Butler, D. and Butler, G. (2000). Twentieth-century British political facts 1900–2000. 8th ed.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
ParlGov Project: https://parlgov.org/
House of Commons Library: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/
Electoral Commission: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/
UCL Constitution Unit: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/constitution-unit-0
UK in a changing Europe: https://ukandeu.ac.uk/
Survey data
British Election Study (BES): https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/
British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA): https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/
European Social Survey (ESS): https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/
World Value Survey (WVS): https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
UK Polling Report: https://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
What UK Thinks: EU: https://whatukthinks.org/eu/
YouGov: https://yougov.co.uk/
Savanta ComRes: https://savanta.com/industry/politics/
Ipsos Mori: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/news-and-polls/overview
Survation: https://www.survation.com/news/blog/
Redfield and Wilton: https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/research/

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Socio-economic data
Office for National Statistics (ONS): https://www.ons.gov.uk/
National Records of Scotland (NRS): https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA): https://www.nisra.gov.uk/