Democracy and Authoritarianism

Global Dynamics

Democracy and Authoritarianism – Global Dynamics is the global module (6 ECTS) of the 9-ECTS course Democracy and Authoritarianism. Global and European Dynamics, in the first year of the Master’s programme in Global Politics and Euro-Mediterranean Relations (GLOPEM) of the University of Catania. The European module (3 ECTS) is taught by Iole Fontana; the two modules share structure, activities and assessment, and give one grade. The course is in English, in the first semester. It is the new advanced course that the Chair’s Grant Agreement introduces in the GLOPEM Master’s. It has been taught under the Chair since 2023-24, as Global Issues in Politics in 2023-24 and as Comparative Politics in 2024-25, and with the current title since 2025-26.

Overview

The course examines democracy and authoritarianism in comparative perspective, with a global focus and a special emphasis on non-European contexts. It gives students the concepts and the tools to understand political institutions, actors and processes across regime types. It has three goals: to introduce the central questions of comparative politics and the conceptual and methodological tools to analyse regimes and political systems; to engage with current debates on the challenges to democracy, from democratic backsliding to populism, polarisation, social media and disinformation, inequality and declining political trust; and to apply these concepts to regions and countries across the world, in weekly laboratories and in a final simulation.

Learning outcomes

Students develop advanced knowledge of the main institutions, actors and processes of political systems in comparative perspective, distinguish regime types, and analyse challenges such as backsliding, populism, polarisation, disinformation, inequality and declining trust, with attention to regional variation. They apply concepts and theories to empirical cases across regions and work with indicators such as V-Dem, World Bank and Eurobarometer data. They compare competing explanations of democratic resilience and decline and defend arguments with evidence. They communicate complex arguments in oral, written and digital form, lead and take part in structured debates, and practise negotiation in the simulation. They read academic and policy literature independently and design a feasible research strategy.

Structure

Part	Sessions	Content
Introduction and foundations	1–5	Comparative method; regime types; executives, legislatures and constraints on the executive; political culture and participation
Research-based themes	6–14	One theme a week: democratic backsliding; populism and polarisation, with parties and party systems; sources of discontent (social media and disinformation, inequality, political trust)
EuDARe seminar	15	A seminar of the Chair hosted by the course
European module		Taught by Iole Fontana, between the themes and the simulation
Simulation	16–18	A democracy under pressure: students play its domestic actors and institutions and the international actors that respond

How the course is taught

Each week has one topic in three sessions: a lecture on Wednesday, a laboratory on Thursday and a structured debate on Friday. Students work in fixed groups of five or six, and each group follows one world region. In the laboratories, groups work on a set task with data or cases from their region, post their results, and half of them present in rotation. In the structured debates, one or two groups lead a debate on the week’s question with prompts and inputs from the readings and the group websites; each group leads one debate. Each group keeps a shared website where members post weekly materials with a short comment. At the end of the course, over three extended sessions, groups play the domestic and international actors of a democracy under pressure, and a debrief links the simulation to the concepts of both modules.

Editions

• 2026-27, Democracy and Authoritarianism – Global Dynamics: 46 attending students.
• 2025-26, Democracy and Authoritarianism – Global Dynamics: 39 attending students.
• 2024-25, Comparative Politics: 37 attending students.
• 2023-24, Global Issues in Politics: 30 attending students.

Assessment

Continuous work counts for 35% (weekly posts on the group website, laboratory outputs and presentations, the debate led by the group and participation in the others), the simulation for 25% (a group position paper, conduct in the negotiation rounds, an individual reflection), and the final exam for 40% (a written test on both modules and an oral discussion of a short research design outline). Assessment is the same for the two modules and gives one grade for the 9-ECTS course.

Texts

Daniele Caramani (ed.), Comparative Politics, Oxford University Press, 2023; Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World, Cambridge University Press, 2021; Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2017. Required, additional and regional readings are listed session by session in the syllabus.

Syllabi

• 2026-27 (PDF)
• 2025-26 (PDF)
• 2024-25 (PDF; Comparative Politics, global module)

Student websites

The group websites are listed on the student websites page.

Seminars

Seminars of the EuDARe series connected with the course, some held in class hours and some open to the course’s students outside them.

In 2024-25: Anna Katharina Mangold (Europa-Universität Flensburg) on democratic backsliding in EU member states and the EU’s response (14 October 2024); Laura Chaqués Bonafont (Universitat de Barcelona and IBEI) on feminist foreign policy (15 November 2024); Danilo Campisi (UNODC) on multilateral diplomacy (25 November 2024); Mario Savino (Università della Tuscia) on the new EU Pact on Migration and the Italy–Albania Protocol (13 December 2024).

In 2025-26: Amnon Cavari (Reichman University) gave two guest lectures in the course, on the institutions of Israeli democracy and the pressures on them (22 October 2025) and on the war and the transformation of public opinion in Israel (23 October 2025); Shasha Guo (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) spoke on China’s “whole-process people’s democracy” (29 October 2025), and Emilia Zankina (Temple University) on populism, post-democracy and new parties (11 December 2025).

In 2026-27 the course hosts the seminar of Adrià Urso Coll (FAO) on AI, international organizations and global power, on 11 November 2026.