The content profile of the MA Political Science

The Comparative Politics focus primarily on

• Government systems and their structures (for example, parliaments and governments)
• collective political actors (for example, parties and associations)
• political processes of convergence and divergence (such as diffusion and learning processes within federal states or the European Union)

Geographically, the focus of the courses is on the member states of the European Unionand the liberal democracies of the English-speaking world. The courses will initially focus on the development of instruments for a precise description of the observed political phenomena as well as typologies for their empirical classification and on a critical reflection of the methods used. In the foreground, however, are then two key questions:

• What are the political causes of the similarities and differences between states, regions or actors?
• What are the consequences of particular forms of government and institutions for governance practices and the quality of the political process?

Methodologically, comparative politics is decidedly empirical and guided by medium-range institutional theories. In teaching and research, both advanced quantitative methods and detailed qualitative individual case studies (for example, in the form of process analyses) or procedures for analyzing medium numbers of cases (such as "Qualitative Configurative Analysis" - QCA) are used.

Courses

The broad range of courses offered in the field of comparative politics primarily includes research-oriented courses on the following topics:

• Theory and empirics of political institutions
• Legislation and organization of parliaments (parliamentary groups, committees)
• Behavior of parliamentarians in plenary and in committees
• Governing in coalitions
• Political representation and integration, especially of citizens with a migration and minority background
• Political diffusion and learning processes

Students have the opportunity to work with researchers who publish their research in international journals and are leaders in externally funded national and international research projects. This has two advantages: First, the results of this research flow into teaching. Second, students gain early access to primary data for their own theses.

The Computational Social Science major fills a gap in the German university landscape. For some years now, computer-based methods have been increasingly used in social science research for the analysis of social science processes: On the one hand, new data sources have been opened up through the use of computers (Big Data, Web Scraping, Data Mining) and made systematically accessible. On the other hand, computers, with their ability to process complex social systems, make it possible to look at phenomena in a new way that can only be analyzed inadequately using classical methods. The focus is thus shifting to dynamic social processes (such as the emergence of social movements), developments in large social networks (for example, through information cascades), or the impact assessment of interventions in ecosystems or habitats (construction of power lines, urban development plans, port expansions).

The major is intended to convey the breadth of possible areas of application of computer-based methods in social science research and to enable students to use these methods independently and in a research-oriented manner. Overall, it is characterized by a strong methodological orientation and is interdisciplinary: To this end, subject representatives from Political Science (Prof. Dr. Andreas Jungherr, Prof. Dr. Johannes Marx) and Business Informatics/Informatics (Prof. Dr. Oliver Posegga) work together intensively and optimally coordinate the modules of the individual departments.

The research profile

This program presents a cross-section of selected content areas and methods of Computational Social Science. It is interdisciplinary in its structure, which is also reflected in the composition of the teaching staff. The research profile of the program covers a wide range of different application areas.