In the seminar we will examine the development of the welfare state in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We will start by definining the CEE region and looking at the similarities and differences (historical, cultural, political, economic) across CEE countries. We will then focus on the pre-1989 communist welfare state, as well as the unfolding and impact of the post-1989 transition. Then we will discuss the post-1989 development of welfare arrangements in the region (including healthcare, long-term care, family policies, pensions) and the actors involved in shaping policy-making processes. The impact of Europeanization processes, as well as gender aspects will also be considered. The non-exhaustive list of topics includes:
1. Definition of CEE; political, cultural, economic diversity of the region; 1945-1989 welfare arrangements; legacies
2. 1989 change; a triple transition; internal vs. external factors and actors shaping transition paths
3. Social costs of the transition – unemployment, health, demography, public opinion
4. Emergence of new ‘varieties of capitalism’ in CEE; the role of the state and trade unions in CEE; employment relations
5. Policies: pensions, healthcare, long-term care, unemployment insurance, family benefits and services
6. Welfare state and gender in the transition process
7. EU enlargement; social acquis; conditionality; compliance; impact of the acquis on social policy in CEE
8. New world(s) of welfare in CEE.
The seminar is organized in monthly block meetings and will take place online via zoom. Readings and course material will be made available on Stud.IP.

This course introduces students to the field of global health policy. We will learn about key actors such as the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. We will also learn about major international agreements in the field of health policy, including the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), and the UN Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage. Throughout the course, we will discuss the role that global health policy can play in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. The course will take place online.

Comparative social policy analysis has focused for a long time mostly on the developed countries of the Global North. But not only the wealthy democracies of the North have developed social policy programs. More and more transition economies and developing countries are developing their own programs, increasing social expenditure and are including new societal groups in their social security systems. Despite some episodes of decline, social policy programs continue to increase worldwide. The development dimension of social policies and the social policies of developing countries in the Global South therefore merit special attention.
The course offers a glimpse into the growing literature on global social policy and on social policy in the Global South in four policy fields – pensions, health, work, and education – which are also covered by research projects in the currently running collaborative research center on global dynamics of public social policy.

This research seminar provides an overview of different methods that can be used for a rigorous analysis of the impacts of social policies. The focus is on quantitative (experimental and quasi-experimental) methods. We will cover many examples from recent research on development policy interventions that also give an overview of current practices in development assistance. The students will learn how to replicate the results from published articles, how to extend the analyses in published articles and, finally, how to design and execute an own impact evaluation study.

In the seminar we will examine the development of the welfare state in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We will start by definining the CEE region and looking at the similarities and differences (historical, cultural, political, economic) across CEE countries. We will then focus on the pre-1989 communist welfare state, as well as the unfolding and impact of the post-1989 transition. Then we will discuss the post-1989 development of welfare arrangements in the region (including healthcare, long-term care, family policies, pensions) and the actors involved in shaping policy-making processes. The impact of Europeanization processes, as well as gender aspects will also be considered. The non-exhaustive list of topics includes:
1. Definition of CEE; political, cultural, economic diversity of the region; 1945-1989 welfare arrangements; legacies
2. 1989 change; a triple transition; internal vs. external factors and actors shaping transition paths
3. Social costs of the transition – unemployment, health, demography, public opinion
4. Emergence of new ‘varieties of capitalism’ in CEE; the role of the state and trade unions in CEE; employment relations
5. Policies: pensions, healthcare, long-term care, unemployment insurance, family benefits and services
6. Welfare state and gender in the transition process
7. EU enlargement; social acquis; conditionality; compliance; impact of the acquis on social policy in CEE
8. New world(s) of welfare in CEE.
The seminar is organized in monthly block meetings and will take place online via zoom. Readings and course material will be made available on Stud.IP.

This course introduces students to the field of global health policy. We will learn about key actors such as the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. We will also learn about major international agreements in the field of health policy, including the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), and the UN Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage. Throughout the course, we will discuss the role that global health policy can play in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. The course will take place online.

Comparative social policy analysis has focused for a long time mostly on the developed countries of the Global North. But not only the wealthy democracies of the North have developed social policy programs. More and more transition economies and developing countries are developing their own programs, increasing social expenditure and are including new societal groups in their social security systems. Despite some episodes of decline, social policy programs continue to increase worldwide. The development dimension of social policies and the social policies of developing countries in the Global South therefore merit special attention.
The course offers a glimpse into the growing literature on global social policy and on social policy in the Global South in four policy fields – pensions, health, work, and education – which are also covered by research projects in the currently running collaborative research center on global dynamics of public social policy.

The goal of this course is to introduce students to theoretical and experimental research in formal political theory, social choice and experimental political science. This course will cover several key topics that have been studied and developed through a combination of game-theoretic analysis and laboratory experiments. We will analyze participation in elections, voting behavior under different voting rules, and principal-agent problems in a political context. For some of these topics, we will examine in detail the interplay between theoretical predictions and behavior observed in laboratory experiments.
Morton, R. B., & Williams, K. C. (2010). Experimental Political Science and the Study of Causality: From Nature to the Lab. Cambridge University Press, available as e-book via SuUB.
Mueller, D. (2003). Public Choice III. Cambridge University Press.
Persson, T., & Tabellini, G. (2002). Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy. Cambridge, The MIT Press.

This course aims to provide students with the tools to analyze, understand and explain the relationship between international politics and education policy. How does globalization influence national education policies and vice versa? Which actors are relevant in international education policy, and which theories of International Relations can help us explain the historical development of the field? These (and others) are the leading questions along which the course is structured. Special attention will be granted to the role of norms in international relations, how they have shaped international education policy in the past and continue to do so in the present. International organizations and their autonomous influence vis-à-vis nation states constitute the second key interest of the course. Is the “Golden age” of the nation state over, and what does the supposed transformation of the state mean for education policy?
This class is designed for Master level students and taught in English. In principle, the course is open to Master students from all relevant programmes. It is mandatory for the Double Degree M.A. Education Policies for Global Development. Teaching will be online.

The goal of this course is to introduce students to behavioral research on fairness, norms and inequality, and to key aspects of experimental design and data analysis. The topics covered include inequity aversion, trust, cooperation, sharing and gender norms, inequality and redistribution. We will give an introduction to statistical software for the data analysis part and play various classroom experiments. The course readings will include published articles as well as chapters from various textbooks (listed in the syllabus).
Morton, R. B., & Williams, K. C. (2010). Experimental Political Science and the Study of Causality: From Nature to the Lab. Cambridge University Press, available as e-book via SuUB.

Comparative welfare state research has for a long time been centred on welfare states of the Global North, and relied on a set of established theoretical approaches to study them. However, as more and more scholars focus on social policy developments in the Global South, questions how developments in these regions can be studied have become more pronounced as well. Should we rely on the theoretical approaches that we already know from the study of welfare states in the Global North, or do we need alternative approaches to be able to capture social policy dynamics in the Global South? Within this debate, an approach that focuses on causal mechanisms can provide a promising way forward.
The aim of this seminar is to introduce students to mechanism-based approaches, and to analyse and compare social policy dynamics around the globe by focusing on causal mechanisms. Students will become familiar with the concept of causal mechanisms and the methodology of process tracing, which can be highly useful for students aiming to conduct case-oriented research. Students will also learn about different welfare arrangements in both established and emerging welfare states, and how they can be studied.
The course will take place online. The course language is English.

In the seminar „Who cares?! Comparative perspectives on care, gender and migration”, we examine the ever-more relevant topic of transnational care work and its consequences for global inequalities as well as for individual lives. We focus specifically on the connection of theory and practice. We aim to give voice to a variety of perspectives and make sense of those using theoretical insights from sociological, gender, social policy and migration studies. The literature and activities of this course will take us to realities of people across the world and draw linkages between multiple actors and spheres. We also ask what a “care revolution” could look like and how some of the inequalities involved in transnational care work could be addressed. This general studies seminar is recommended for advanced B.A. students and M.A. students. We will use a variety of online tools to create an open, inspiring, and communicative learning environment.

It has been more than half a century since the last vestiges of formal empires were dismantled in the postwar context yet the notion of coloniality continues to frame our understanding of power across the world. “Racism, Coloniality and Space” opens up a platform for intellectual engagement to explore the stubborn relationship of racism as a spatial configuration of coloniality of power in different spatial settings. In this course, we tackle this relationship with a focus on three themes. First, we discuss how European colonialism still shapes our cartographic perspective of power relations in the world in the Global South and transnational diasporas. Second, we turn to the ghetto and el barrio as both colonial and futuristic spaces of African American and Latinx communities in the United States and discuss how racism and coloniality meet in urban spaces of the Global North. Third, we move to the Middle East as the ultimate Other of the West with a discussion on racism against Kurds in Turkey and Turkish cities. The goal of the course is to inform the participants about the interaction between structural racism and coloniality in contrasting spatial settings. Participants will explore this relationship to discuss alternative paths of politics that challenge contemporary forms and representations of coloniality.


Aim The course serves two objectives. The first one is to discuss the relationship between coloniality and racism as spatial categories. The second objective is to contextualize this relationship in historical cases.

Student Learning Outcomes 1. Gaining abilities on how to think critically and analytically on racism 2. Thinking the racism, coloniality and space from different disciplinary perspectives 3. Developing presentation skills 4. Gaining confidence in critical writing


Literatur:


Anibal Quijano & Immanuel Wallerstein (1992). Americanity as a concept, or the Americas in the Modern World System, International Social Science Journal, 134, 549–552
Anibal Quijano (2010) Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality, Cultural Studies, 21: 2,168 — 178.
Neil MacMaster (2001) Racism in Europe, 1870-2000. Palgrave, pp. 1-26. (Introduction: The Roots of Modern Racism)
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (1997) Rethinking Racism Toward a Structural Interpretation, American Sociological Review, 62 (3), 465–469
Castles, S. & Kosack, G. (1972). The Function of Labour Immigration in Western European Capitalism. New Left Review, 1(73).
Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton (1993) American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (Chapter 2-Construction of Ghetto, p. 17-59)
Max Felker-Kantor (2020) Policing Los Angeles: Race, Resistance, and the Rise of the LAPD; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (Chapter 1-Introduction the Police Power, Chapter 2-Policing Raceriotland: A Journey into Racist Policing and Urban Uprising, p. 1-18, p. 19-42)