230073 SE Politische Soziologie und vergleichende Wohlfahrtsstaatanalyse (2018W)

Why did welfare states develop at such different speed and why have they become so different cross-nationally in their extent of generosity and redistristribution?

This seminar seeks to develop a broad interdisciplinary perspective for the analysis of complex social processes and provides students with a conceptual tool-kit that will allow them to reduce the complexity of social phenomena as much as necessary, but no more than necessary.

The goal of our seminar is to give
1. an introduction to basic principles of political sociology by analyzing critically classical texts by de Tocqueville, Weber and Mosca and Michels
2. analyse conditions for the development of welfare states by adopting a comparative perspective on different policy fields (e.g. labour market, gender, education and environment).
We will also address methodologcal issues on how to compare institutions and welfare states.