210083 SE BAK13: SE State Activity, Policy and Governance Analyses (2017S)

You are required to come to each session. Attendance in the first session is mandatory! You should be on time and stay for the entire session. If there are conflicts, please let me know in advance. You may miss up to two sessions, but I consider students as missing a session if you leave early or come late. Students who miss more than two sessions and who do not unsubscribe on time will fail the class (for exceptions see below).
Attendance implies that you have read the course material and prepared the questions for each session. I expect all students to be able to answer these questions or at least to be able to present their thoughts and ideas. To show that you have prepared the readings, you should take notes, upload them on Moodle until Sunday, 12.a.m. (before each session), and have them with you in class. I do not plan to grade them and prefer to discuss your solutions in class. If this doesn’t work, I will grade the weekly assignments instead.
Seminars are much more fun if you participate in class. I take notes on the quantity and quality of your participation in class, and it will affect the final grade (30 percent of the final grade).
The seminar is held in English. This includes all kinds of communication (e.g. email, office hours). English may not be your first language, and you will probably make mistakes. I will not judge your language skills. Rather, I strongly encourage everybody to participate in class!

For one session, you will have to prepare a presentation of 15 min (one presenter) or 10 min per presenter (for groups). It should be accompanied by slides (using a presentation software; e.g. PowerPoint; Beamer) and a handout (max 2 pages). In this presentation, you will provide an elaborate answer to one (or more) question(s) posed for the session. You will also be asked to answer questions after your presentation. These questions may come from me or your colleagues (who have read the texts and prepared answers themselves).

In your final essay (4,000-6,000 words), you link an empirical example to one of the topics we dealt with in the seminar. The essay contains (1) a detailed description of the empirical case, (2) it links the example to the concepts presented in the seminar, and (3) provides the implications of this puzzle (i.e. what results should we see? How can we overcome the problem?).
I will not extend the deadline, nor will I accept revised versions of the essay. Please note: If you do not hand in an essay (longer than 4,000 words) until 31 July, you cannot pass the course.