Teaching

Courses

The research group Comparative Politics and Public Policy offers courses in the B.A. Political Science, the B.A. Social Sciences (teaching profession), the M.A. Political Science and the doctoral programme.

An overview of current and previous courses can be found here:

Theses

You can find information on formal requirements and procedures on the information pages for your degree programme (e.g. here for the B.A. Political Science and M.A. Political Science.

If you would like to write a thesis in the field of comparative politics and public policy, you should have successfully completed an introductory and advanced course in this field.

What is the procedure if you are interested in supervision of your thesis?

• Please first contact the desired supervisor with your topic idea by email.
• Only after this initial consultation should you write an exposé/outline (2-5 pages, see below) and send it by email or discuss it during student consulting hours.
• This is usually followed by several feedback and revision loops before registration. You will receive advice and revision instructions from the supervisor as well as in the final colloquium.

How should the exposé/outline be structured?

Planned title of the paper; outline of the problem and state of research; research interest and research questions; if applicable, thesis/hypothesis; theoretical approach; methodology, draft outline; bibliography and, if applicable, separate list of sources.

Resources

We would particularly like to recommend the following resources on basic terms, concepts and theories in the field of comparative politics and policy analysis for writing degree and seminar papers:

• Encyclopedia of Public Policy [continuously updated and extended encyclopedia]
• Teaching and Learning Resources of the "International Public Policy Association" (IPPA)
• Blum, Sonja & Schubert, Klaus (2018): Politikfeldanalyse. Eine Einführung. Springer VS. [introductory textbook on policy analysis, in German]