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Political Science, European Politics and International Relations

The PHD Programme will not be renewed for the next academic year

The PhD program in Political Science, European Politics and International Relations is a joint doctoral initiative of theSant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa,the University of Siena, the University of Florence and the University of Pisa. The program provides students with an advanced training across the main fields of political science and international relations, ensuring strong command of the most important quantitative and qualitative methods that are required to conduct rigorous and innovative empirical research. Thanks to a large and internationally recognized faculty (which enlists also significant multidisciplinary competences in the fields of international economy, political philosophy, statistics, contemporary history and international law) the program offers a broad range of courses and other teaching activities which are fully coordinated and integrated. Students will benefit from the stimulating intellectual environment of an international student and faculty community.

Courses, seminars and research activities of the program will concern the three main areas of “Comparative Politics”, “European Politics” e “International Relations” with special attention to phenomena of political change affecting European and extra-Eurpean countries and to the development of new actors and new institutional forms in response to social and economic change.

A central place will be given to 4 main research areas;

a) the challenges to democracy originating from processes of globalisation and economic crises which shift outside the borders of national states some of the most important decisions;

b)the new forms of multilevel and international governance with a high technocratic legitimacy but a low democratic legitimacy, which have gained everywhere but particularly in Europe increasingly important powers of decision and coordination at the expense of national governments. A crucial and connected aspect are the reactions of public opinion to this new environment.

c)the crisis of traditional forms of democracy and of parties and the rise of new forms of democracy (deliberative democracy, direct democracy, etc.)

d) State sovereignty as practice: contemporary challenges and responses. New patterns of regional and international ordering in conflict and security studies.

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