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PhD Course: Political Science Research – Problems and Perspectives

October 2025 – April 2026

Course convenors

Professor Jens Bartelson

Associate Professor Agustín Goenaga

Instructors

  • Professor Jens Bartelson
  • Associate Professor Agustín Goenaga
  • Senior Lecturer Mats Fred
  • Associate Professor Martin Hall
  • Professor Catarina Kinnvall
  • Associate Professor Moira Nelson

Course aims

This course aims to provide doctoral students with knowledge of the basic concepts and theories of political science and its study.

  1. 1. In the first part of the course, students are required to read selected classics of political science from different subdisciplines, partly in order to familiarize themselves with the rich history of the discipline, partly in order to identify recurrent problems and concepts that have shaped the identity of the study of politics and continue to animate current debates.
  2. 2. In the second part of the course, students are required to familiarize themselves with some classical statements in the philosophy of social sciences and assess their implications for the ways of theorizing in political science.
  3. 3. The third part of the course is devoted to contemporary debates within different subdisciplines, with special reference to the concepts and problems discussed previously in the course. In this part, scholars from the department will present state-of-the-art scholarship from their respective fields and discuss their broader relevance to the development of the discipline.

Learning outcomes

Participants will be able to accomplish the following objectives by the end of the course:

  • Compare and critically discuss different definitions and understandings of politics.
  • Compare and critically discuss core concepts and problems of political science.
  • Compare and critically discuss different approaches to the study of political science.
  • Compare and critically discuss different theories of science and their implications.
  • Being aware of the major contemporary debates within different subdisciplines.
  • Being aware of the interfaces and synergies between these subdisciplines.

Teaching

Teaching will consist of seminars in which the teachers provide a brief introduction to the topic at hand and participants analyze together the assigned readings.

For Parts 1 and 2, the course instructors will circulate in advance a set of questions to guide the discussion. Participants will be required to submit short reflection papers about the readings the night before each seminar.

For Part 3, each instructor will contact participants ahead of time if anything needs to be prepared in advance besides reading the assigned texts.

Examination

Apart from being required to actively participate in discussions, participants will submit short reflection papers before each seminar in which they reflect and discuss the questions circulated by the instructors based on the assigned readings.

The final assignment will be an essay (~5000 words) in which PhD students position their dissertation topic / idea in relation to broader debates in political science and its sub-fields. This assignment should serve as a building-block towards their plan paper, as it should encourage students to articulate how they envision their dissertation project will contribute to ongoing research in the discipline. The final assignment for the students is due at the beginning of April.

Jens Bartelson (jens [dot] bartelson [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (jens[dot]bartelson[at]svet[dot]lu[dot]se))

Agustín Goenaga (agustin [dot] goenaga [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (agustin[dot]goenaga[at]svet[dot]lu[dot]se))

Admission

We welcome external applicants. The course will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis, giving priority to:

  1. PhD students from the political science department in Lund,
  2. PhD students from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University,
  3. PhD students from other faculties at Lund University and
  4. External PhD students

Lund-based students are expected to participate in person, but the course will be offered in hybrid format if non-Lund-based students participate. The maximum number of participants is 10.

To be eligible for the course, students must have been admitted to a PhD level program.

PhD students from other faculties than the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University as well as external PhD students need to pay a course fee – 8,500 SEK for 15 ECTS credits.

To apply for the course, send an email to the course convenors, Jens Bartelson and Agustín Goenaga (see above). In that email, please include a letter from your supervisor, stating that s/he backs your participation in the course. Please also include the following information (which we need for invoicing):

  • Name of your University
  • Name of your Department
  • Full address of the Department, including zip code, city and country.
  • VAT-number/organisation number or similar
  • Reference person to the invoice (e.g. your supervisor or the Director of doctoral studies at your department)
  • Your own full name

Part 1: Political Science Perspectives

  1. What is politics?

Arendt, Hannah, 2013, [1958]. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Excerpts: Prologue, Ch. 1-5, 9-10, 24, 43 & 45; 65 p.)

Aristotle, 1996, [c 330 BC]. The Politics and the Constitution of Athens. Edited by Raymond Geuss and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Book I & III, 58 p.)

Locke, John, 1988 [1689]. Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Second Treatise, Chs. 2 & 3, pp. 269-282, 13 p.) 

Schmitt, Carl, 2008, [1932]. The Concept of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Excerpts: pp. 19-37; 18 p)

  1. Power, authority, and rule

Arendt, Hannah, 1977, [1954]. ‘What is Authority?’ in Between Past and Future. London: Penguin. pp. 91-141. (50 p.)

Dahl, Robert A., 1973. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press. (Excerpts, Ch. 1-2; 29 p.)
Foucault, Michel, 1982. "The Subject and Power." Critical Inquiry Vol. 8 No. pp. 777-795, 18 p.

Lukes, Steven. 2005. Power: A Radical View. Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan. (Excerpts, Introduction & Ch 1, 59 p.)

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 2019, [1532]. The Prince. Edited by Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Chs. I-III & VII-X, 25 p.)

Mills, C. Wright, 1956. The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, 29 p.). 

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1995, [1792]. A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 2, pp. 87-108, 21 p.) 

  1. The state

Brown, Wendy, 2010. Walled States, Waning Sovereignty. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, pp. 7-43, 36 p.)
Hobbes, Thomas, 1996, [1651]. Leviathan. Edited by Richard Tuck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Chs. XVI-XVIII, pp. 111-129, 18 p.)

Huntington, Samuel P., 2006 [1968]. Political Order in Changing Societies. (New Haven: Yale University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, pp. 1-39 & 78-92; 53 p.)

Levi, Margaret 2002.’The State of the Study of the State’, in Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner (eds.) Political Science: The State of the Discipline. New York: Norton. pp. 33-55. (22 p.)

Skocpol, Theda, 1985. ‘Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research’, in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 3-38. (35 p.)

Tilly, Charles, 1985. ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 169-191. (22 p.)

Weber, Max, 2009, [1919]. ‘Politics as a Vocation’, in From Max Weber. Essays in Sociology. Edited by H. H. Gerth and C Wright Mills. Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 77-128. (51 p.)

          Zarakol, Ayşe. 2022. Before the West. London: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, 44 p.)

  1. Its competitors

Alighieri, Dante, 1996, [c. 1313]. Monarchy, Edited by Prue Shaw. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Book I, 29 p.)

Kant, Immanuel, 1991, [1795]. ’Perpetual Peace. A Philosophical Sketch’, in Hans Reiss (ed.) Kant: Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 93-130. (37 p.)

Pagden, Anthony. 2024. Beyond States: Powers, Peoples and Global Order. Cambridge; Hoboken: Polity. (Exceprts: Intro & Ch. 1, 50 p.)

Strange, Susan, 1996. The Retreat of the State. The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1-2, 5 & 13; 64 p.) 

  1. Institutions

Hall, Peter A. and Rosemary C. R. Taylor, 1996. ‘Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms’, Political Studies,  vol. 44, no. 5, pp. 936-957. (21 p.)

Hirschman, Albert O., 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1-3, 9; 49 p.)

March, James G. & Johan P. Olsen. 1984. ’The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life’. American Political Science Review vol. 78, no. 3, pp. 734-749. (15 p.)

North, Douglass C., 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1-4, 8; 41 p.) 

Ostrom, Elinor, 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1-2 & 6; 70 p.)

  1. Democracy

Downs, Anthony, 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Brothers. (Excerpts: Ch. 1-4 & 16; 65 p.)

Lipset, Seymour Martin & Stein Rokkan. 1967. ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’, in Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Free Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, pp. 1-64; 64 p.)

Mansbridge, Jane, 1983. Beyond Adversary Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1-3 & 21; 39 p.) 

Schumpeter, Joseph, 2010 [1943]. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London & New York: Routledge. (Excerpts: Chs. 22 & 23, pp. 241-269, 28 p.)

Young, Iris Marion, 2002. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Excerpts: Introduction & Ch. 1; 50 p.). 

  1. Norms, ideas and practices

Bourdieu, Pierre, 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, 27 p.)

Finnemore, Martha and Kathryn Sikkink, 1998. ’International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.’ International Organization vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 887-917. (30 p.)

Lipsky, Mikael, 1969. Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. (Excerpts: Ch. 1-2; 22 p.)

Putnam, Robert, 1993. Making Democracy Work. Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, 4, 5; 75 p.)

Schatzki, Theodore R. 1996. Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  (Excerpts: Ch. 1, 18 p.).

Zaller, John R., 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1-3; 53 p.)

  1. Capitalism and markets

Fraser, Nancy. 1995 “From redistribution to recognition? Dilemmas of justice in a ‘postsocialist' age.” New Left Review 1/212: 68-93 (25 p.)

Hall, Peter A. and David Soskice, 2001. Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Excerpts: Ch. 1; 68 p.).

Mies, Marina. 1986. “Social Origins of the Sexual Division of Labour” in Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale. Women in the International Division of Labour. London: Zed Books. (Excerpts: Ch. 2, 30 p.)

Ruggie, John Gerard. 1982. “International Regimes, Transactions and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order.” International Organization, Vol. 36, No. 2, Spring 1982 (379-415) (36 p.)

 Schumpeter, Joseph, 2010 [1943]. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London & New York: Routledge. (Excerpts: Chs. 7, 8 & 12, 21 p.)

Part 2: Philosophy of social science and ways of theorizing 

2a. Philosophy of social science

Butler, Judith, 2007, [1990]. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London & New York: Routledge. (Excerpts: Part I, 32 p.) 

Popper, Karl, 1963. Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. London & New York: Routledge. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, 36 p.)

Searle, John, 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: The Free Press, 1995. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, 30 p.)

Winch, Peter, 1958. The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. London & New York: Routledge. (Excerpts: Ch. 1, 37 p.)

2b. Ways of theorizing

Page, Scott E. 2018. The Model Thinker. What you Need to Know to Make Data Work for You. NY: Basic Books, (Excerpts: Chs 1-4, 58 p.)

Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 1968. Constructing Social Theories. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, (Excerpts: Chs 1-2, 56 p.)

Swedberg, Richard, 2012. ’Theorizing in Sociology and Social Science: Turning to the context of discovery.’ Theory and Society 41(1):1-40, (40 p.)

Part 3: Contemporary debates 

3a. Political Theory

Martin Hall

Seminar 3a.1. What is the difference between political theory and social theory?

Dryzek, John, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips. 2006. “Introduction”, in John Dryzek, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3-45. (42 p.)

Helliwell, Christine and Barry Hindess. 2006. “Political Theory and Social Theory” in John Dryzek, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 810-827. (17 p.)

Ritzer, George and Barry Smart. 2001. “Introduction: Theorists, Theories and Theorizing” in George Ritzer and Barry Smart (eds) Handbook of Social Theory, London: SAGE, 1-11. (11 p.)

Seminar 3a.2. Political theory: intellectual history and/or normative theory?

Farr, James. 2006. “The History of Political Thought as Disciplinary Genre” in John Dryzek, Bonnie Honig and Anne Phillips (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 225-242. (17 p.)

Skinner, Quentin. 1969. "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas." History and Theory 8 (1): 3-53. (50 p.)

Wagner, Peter. 2003. “As Intellectual History Meets Historical Sociology: Historical Sociology after the Linguistic Turn” in Gerard Delanty and Engin F. Isin (eds.) Handbook of historical sociology. London: SAGE, 168-180. (12 p.)

3b. Comparative Politics

Moira Nelson

Seminar 3b.1 

Afonso, Alexandre. 2015. Choosing whom to betray: populist right-wing parties, welfare state reforms and the trade-off between office and votes. European Political Science Review, 7(2), 271-292. (21 p.)

Bäck, Hanna, Müller, Wolfgang C., Angelova, Mariyana, & Strobl, Daniel. 2022. Ministerial autonomy, parliamentary scrutiny and government reform output in parliamentary democracies. Comparative Political Studies, 55(2), 254-286. (32 p.)

Garritzmann, Julian L., Neimanns, Erik, & Busemeyer, Marius R. 2023. Public opinion towards welfare state reform: The role of political trust and government satisfaction. European Journal of Political Research, 62(1), 197-220. (23 p.)

Jensen, Carsten, Arndt, Christop, Lee, Senghui, & Wenzelburger, Georg. 2018. Policy instruments and welfare state reform. Journal of European Social Policy, 28(2), 161-176. (15 p).

Niedzwiecki, Sara, & Pribble, Jennifer. 2025. Social policy expansion and retrenchment in Latin America: Causal paths to successful reform. Journal of Social Policy, 54(1), 1-21. (20 p.)

Seminar 3b.2

De Ruiter, Michiel, & Kuipers, Sanneke. 2022. Avoiding blame in policy crises in different institutional settings. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. (21 p.)

Hood, Christopher, Jennings, Will, & Copeland, Paul. 2016. Blame avoidance in comparative perspective: Reactivity, staged retreat and efficacy. Public Administration, 94(2), 542-562. (20 p.)

Leong, Ching, Howlett, Michael, & Safaei, Mohammad. 2023. Blame avoidance and credit-claiming dynamics in government policy communications: Evidence from Leadership Tweets in Four OECD Countries during the 2020–2022 COVID-19 Pandemic. Policy and Society, 42(4), 564-585. (20 p.)

Nelson, Moira. 2016. Credit-claiming or blame avoidance? Comparing the relationship between welfare state beliefs and the framing of social policy retrenchment in France and Germany. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 18(2), 138-156. (18 p.)

Unan, Ayşe, Klüver, Heike, Hobolt, Sara, & Rodon, Toni. 2025. The political effects of communicative interventions during crises. European Journal of Political Research. (12 p.)

3c. International Politics

Catarina Kinnvall

Seminar 3c.1.

Epstein, Charlotte (2013) ‘Theorizing Agency in Hobbes Wake: The rational actor, the self or the speaking subject.’ International Organization 67(2): 287-316 (29 p.)

Hutchings, Kimberly and Owens, Patricia (2021) ‘Women Thinkers and the Canon of International Thought: Recovery, rejection, and reconstitution’, American Political Science Review 115 (2): 347-359, (13 p.)

Navon, Emmanuel (2001) ‘The Third Debate Revisited’, Review of International Studies 27(4): 611-625, (14 p.)

De Carvalho, Benjamin, Leira, Halvard, Hobson, John M. (2011) ‘The Big Bangs of IR: The myths that your teachers still tell you about 1648 and 1919’, Millennium 39(3): 725-738 (13 p.)

Seminar 3c.2.

Bhambra, Gurminder (2014) Postcolonial and Decolonial Dialogues’, Postcolonial Studies 17(2): 115-121. (6 p.)

Burke, Anthony, Fisher, Stefanie, Mitchell Audra, Dalby, Simon, Levine, Daniel J. (2016), ‘Planet Politics: A manifesto from the End of IR’ Millennium 44(3): 499-523. (24 p.)

Hobson, John, M. (2007) ‘Is Critical Theory always for the White West or for Western Imperialism: Beyond Westphilian towards a post-racist critical IR’ Review of International Studies, 33(S1): 91-116. (25 p.)

Hutchinson, Emma and Bleiker, Roland (2014) ‘Theorizing Emotions in World Politics’ International Theory 6(3): 491-514. (23 p.)

Kinnvall, Catarina and Mitzen, Jennifer (2020) ‘Anxiety, Fear, and Ontological Security in World Politics: Thinking with and beyond Giddens’ International Theory 12(2): 240-256. (16 p.)

Lyytikäinen, Minna, Yadav, Punal and Wibben, Annick TR (2020) ‘Unruly wives in the household: Toward feminist genealogies for peace research’, Cooperation and Conflict, 65(1): 3-25. (22 p.)

3d. Public Administration

Mats Fred

Seminar 3d.1. Public administration research and its relations to Political Science

 Douglas, S., P. T. Hart, C. Ansell, L. Anderson, M. Flinders, B. Head, and D. Moynihan. 2019. ‘Towards Positive Public Administration: A Manifesto’. Submitted to Public Administration (25 p.)

Kettl, D. F. 2022. ‘Public administration and political science: Can this marriage be saved?’ Governance 35 (4):983–990. (7 p.)                     

McDonald B. D. Hall, J. L. O´Flynn, J. van Thiel, S. 2022. ‘The future of public administration research: An editor’s perspective.’ Public Administration. 100 (1):59–71. (12 p.)

Vogel, R. Hattke, F. A century of Public Administration: Traveling through time and topics. Public Administration. 100 (1):17-40. (23 p.)

Seminar 3d.2. The end of bureaucracy?

Byrkjeflot, Haldor and du Gay, Paul (2012), "Bureaucracy: An Idea Whose Time has Come (Again)?", Diefenbach, T. and Todnem By, R. (eds.) Reinventing Hierarchy and Bureaucracy – from the Bureau to Network Organizations. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 85-109. (24 p.)

Mergel, I., Dickinson, H., Stenvall, J., & Gasco, M. (2023). Implementing AI in the public sector. Public Management Review, 1–13.

Ek Österberg, E., Qvist, M. (2020). ’Public sector innovation as governance reform: A comparative analysis of competitive and collaborative strategies in the Swedish transport sector.’  Administration & Society 52(2): 292-318, (26 p.)

Ahrne, G., Aspers, P., & Brunsson, N. (2015). ‘The Organization of Markets’. Organization Studies, 36(1): 7-27. (20 p.)

Last updated: 26 Jun 2025 | webbredaktor [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se