CIVICA ESR
COURSE CATALOGUE

The seminar examines the responsibility of the EU as an agent of justice and the kind(s) of justice the EU ought to deliver. It discusses the main theories of EU justice (including Rawlsian justice, justice as solidarity, access justice and the right to justification) in connection to salient contexts of (in)justice shaped by EU law, such as citizenship, internal market, consumer protection, competition, climate).
Teachers:

• Martijn Hesselink (European University Institute)

This course will give students an overview of the applied text analysis methods for social science scholars. The goal of the course is to introduce participants into the research field of data science and text analysis. This involves the study of applied methods, models, and algorithms in natural language processing and machine learning research. Participants will familiarize themselves with programming in Python, and learn to be able to code as well as read and understand simple scripts. The course is structured in two parts, where the first part focuses on the fundamentals of working in Python. The second part looks at working with text, including basic concepts and data handling, to uncover hidden structures to understand large amounts of text, and predictive modeling, i.e., the use of patterns in the data in order to predict characteristics of the text (e.g., sentiment) or the author (e.g., age and gender).This advanced course is organized as an interactive seminar, rather than a traditional lecture course, to give students the tools and practical understanding of the matter. Therefore, substantial in-class participation is expected and required. This class will use a flipped-classroom format. What does that mean? Before the lessons, students will get access to a notebook that implements and explains the core concepts. Students are expected to read and work through this notebook before class at their own pace, and write down any questions they have. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/64f4d939-3fd7-4afd-8f0e-70cbdda3698c/HOVY+Text+analysis+syllbus+ay+2021_2022.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nRrO-LA. Schedule: go to http://didattica.unibocconi.eu/lezioni and search by code 40962
Teachers:

• Dirk Hovy (Bocconi University)

Entry requirements: Working installation of Python 3.6+ (preferably through Anaconda) and knowledge of how to use Jupyter notebooks.
Assessment: Individual project (due after 2 weeks) where students apply what they have learned practically.

The PhD seminar aims to equip students with the skills necessary to design, conduct and write up empirical studies in the social sciences. We will critically discuss what constitutes ‘good’ research questions (i.e., important, interesting, novel and answerable), and consider examples from an array of fields and methodological traditions. Our overarching focus will be on the key issues that come up when pursuing any kind of empirical research: identifying a ‘puzzle’ in the literature, theory building and testing, and considering causality, measurement, sampling, generalizability and research ethics. Finally, we will examine how these elements of research design come together in a single manuscript that stands a reasonable chance of publication in a reputable journal. By the end of the course, students will develop a clear understanding of what kind of social-scientific puzzles they wish to solve over the medium-term, and how this ambition fits with designing their independent research projects. Note: This is not a course on research methods. There are several courses on a range of methods offered across the university, and students are encouraged to receive such training as appropriate. Syllabus:https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/210cf0cf-e9ca-4f29-a158-a63f3e51dd3d/40439_Kentikelenis_ResearchColloquium_2022.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nTozsnp --- Schedule: Go to https://didattica.unibocconi.eu/lezioni/index.php and search by code 40439
Teachers:

• Alexander Kentikelenis (Bocconi University)

Assessment: Assignments

This course covers the most prominent theories and arguments in international relations and broader globalization scholarship. It places special emphasis on the evolution of social-scientific thinking over international affairs, in order to situate contemporary debates into their historical and geographical context. The varied material presented here is intended to go to first principles, rather than expose you to contemporary cutting-edge empirical research. Nonetheless, based on the material covered in this class, you will be able to situate more recent studies into the traditions from which they emerged and become a more sophisticated consumer—and possibly producer!—of international affairs scholarship. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/e0fa2e31-c5c0-4a8f-944d-0292a4c9b411/40994_Kentikelenis_IntPolSoc_2022.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nTCu4Y4 --- Schedule: Go to https://didattica.unibocconi.eu/lezioni/index.php and search by code 40994.
Teachers:

• Alexander Kentikelenis (Bocconi University)

Assessment: Response and Review Papers

The course explores qualitative methodologies and their application to research in the social sciences. The course exposes students to the theoretical principles underlying qualitative approaches and discusses the questions that can be addressed with these methodologies. At the same time, it aims at familiarizing the students with the concrete application of qualitative methodologies, giving them the opportunity to experience for themselves the strengths and weaknesses of such approaches. The course, therefore, will entail traditional lectures, the discussion of scholarly papers built upon qualitative approaches, and examples of policy evaluations conducted with these methodologies. It will confront students with the methods for analysing text data, derived from public speeches, conversations, or interviews, field notes and visual data. The course has been designed as a working seminar. During the course, students will complete 4 non – assessed assignments whereby students will collect their own data for the purpose of qualitative analysis and will carry out the analysis themselves. The evaluation is composed of a 100% "research proposal-type" paper. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/c79fc0e9-9aef-4a75-9d56-19ade4f03abc/40061_Qualitative+Methods_21-22_Cappellaro.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nTn39uh -- N.B. It is not possible to enrol in the course as auditors. Students will need to produce assignments and the final paper.
Teachers:

• GIULIA CAPPELLARO (Bocconi University)

Assessment: 100% a “research proposal-type” paper. The paper should incorporate (i) a literature review and research question to be investigated with qualitative methods; (ii) the description of the qualitative research design (iii) the description of the data collection tools and analysis to be undertaken. The assignment will be submitted to the instructor after the end of the course.

The main objective of the course is to provide an introduction to public administration as an interdisciplinary field of study with a primary emphasis on public management and public policy. After the successful completion of the course, candidates are expected to understand the variety of explanations of structure and behavior in public organizations and to be able to identify, analyze, criticize and formulate arguments about public administration. Through the course, candidates will be exposed to key areas of public administration with reference to different institutional contexts, including traditional public agencies and international organizations. Topics include different approaches to public administration and governance, public sector reforms, the interaction between politics and administration, public decision making and policy making. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/dbb57927-91b6-4788-a3a5-bf8008bbdc57/40293+Public+Administration_Jugl_2022_draft+syllabus.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nK7dhmU --- Schedule: go to https://didattica.unibocconi.eu/lezioni/ and search by code 40293
Teachers:

• Marlene Jugl (Bocconi University)
• Greta Nasi (Bocconi University)

This course is about algorithms and analytical techniques to study networks, particularly random networks sampled from interesting generative models. The course assumes basic familiarity with directed and undirected graphs, the notions of connectivity and strong connectivity, and of BFS and DFS visits of graphs and their properties. We will study applications of linear algebraic techniques to graphs, various results about spectral graph theory and spectral algorithms, and we will analyze spectral algorithms for community detection in the stochastic block model and to find planted cliques in random graphs. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/2bd747b0-f58f-4241-a003-a838e8e0dccf/41000+Graph+Theory++Trevisan+21-22.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nTnaoUH
Teachers:

• Luca Trevisan (Bocconi University)

This course provides a survey of the field of public economics. The course covers several of the most important public policy questions modern governments face, including tax policy, transfer policy, social insurance, pensions, minimum wages, child care provision, parental leave policy, and migration policy. The course material will be motivated by current policy questions, and then discuss important empirical and theoretical insights on that question from the economics literature. At the end of the course, the participants will have a clearer understanding of the economic insights on key policy questions, as well as an understanding of the methodologies used to produce these insights. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/9929ec92-a7f3-423a-a09c-8db8e41e142c/40993-Policy+Process-syllabus_2021-2022.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nTCryPd --- Schedule: go to https://didattica.unibocconi.eu/lezioni/index.php and search by code 40993
Teachers:

• Giulia Giupponi (Bocconi University)
• Massimo Anelli (Bocconi University)

Entry requirements: Students should have Masters or PhD level knowledge of quantitative methods for causal analysis. The capacity to read and understand simple microeconomic models is desirable
Assessment: The assessment for this course will be a take-home assignment. Students will be asked to develop a critical literature review on a topic of their choice (among those covered in the course). Detailed instructions will be provided separately.

This course presents current discussions in public administration and public management research. It discusses what is “new” in public management: which innovations are currently debated and implemented, why and to which effect? The topics range from the macro level of states and administrative systems to meso levels of organizations and micro levels of individual bureaucrats to offer a broad overview of current debates in the field. The first part addresses macro-level societal and paradigmatic changes such as global crises, new governance processes involving citizens and the rise of populism. How do the state and public administration react to these challenges? How far are their roles changing, and in which direction? We also discuss the role of political and cultural context and which methods are appropriate to incorporate such topics in public administration research. A second part focuses on the micro and meso level and it addresses some key topics of public management research. Why do government organizations innovate? How do they adopt innovation? What are the outcomes of innovation. We will also address the relationship between innovation, transparency and competitiveness as outcomes of innovation. At the end of the course, students should be able to understand current debates and discuss current research in public management. They should also understand the diversity and the multidisciplinary character of public management research. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/cb07b560-4637-49f0-a921-124a31f968c6/40345_ATPM_Jugl_Nasi_draft22.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nTn2NIn --- Schedule: go to https://didattica.unibocconi.eu/lezioni/# and search by code 40345
Teachers:

• Greta Nasi (Bocconi University)
• Marlene Jugl (Bocconi University)

Assessment: In-class discussion (10%); class seminars (40%); take-home assignment (50%).

This course follows Wendy Laura Belcher's Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success (Belcher’s book is required) quite closely. Over a period of 10 weeks we will try to get your article ready for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. To do this, we will discuss how to improve your writing strategies and habits, identify appropriate journals for your article, clarify arguments, write an interesting title and abstract and organise your material and arguments to meet the journal’s expectations. The course will also help you fine-tune and polish your writing. This online course starts on Thursday, 17 February 2022 and runs for 10 weeks, Thursdays from 4-5;30 pm. Please register only if you are sure you wish to complete this course, can attend all sessions, and have a draft ready that you will work on during the course. If your registration is confirmed by the Hertie School's PhD Team, you will have to send your draft to the instructor before classes begin. To earn 5 ECTS: 1. You will need to do at least 2/3ds of the weekly reading and weekly assignments such as filling out the forms in the workbook. The instructor will not collect these, but he will note that you didn’t do them if that is clear from the class discussions. 2. You will need to prepare an elevator talk on your article for week 2. 3. You will need to write an abstract of your article 4. You will need to choose 3 - 5 good articles that can serve as a model for your writing. 5. You will need to identify at least 3 appropriate journals for where to submit your article. 6. You will need to identify three claims for significance in your article. 7. You will need to prepare a very short power-point presentation of your whole article. 8. You will need to submit a draft of your article to the instructor and your peers for review. 9. You will need to review two of your peers’ articles. Please find more information on target group, goals and contents on this website: https://www.hertie-school.org/en/phd/news-and-trainings/trainings/publishing-your-research-getting-an-article-ready
Entry requirements: a draft to work on

The course is addressed to graduate and doctoral students in social sciences interested to gain introductory knowledge in foresight theory, methods and practice. In order to successfully cope with accelerated change, students need to understand contemporary and future global and regional challenges, anticipate future developments and their implications and impacts globally and regionally, and proactively prepare for them. The course aims to offer basic professional training and studying in the field of futures research with a focus on social sciences in general and international politics in particular. The course is structured on three inter-related sections. The first section provides an overview of the evolution of Futures Studies as a discipline and the main concepts with which it operates, pinpointing the differences between them, as well as their advantages, limitations, and implicit assumptions. The second section offers a summary of various methods and models used in Futures Studies. Last but not least, the third section is more practical oriented, exemplifying with selected international relations case studies as well as the students’ own individual written projects some of the theoretical and methodological knowledge gained so far. Introduction to Futures Studies • The history and status of futures research: evolution and institutionalization – classic works, textbooks, think tanks, higher education programs, scientific journals, and professional associations • Underlying concepts: futures studies; futures literacy; forecasting; foresight; anticipation; anticipatory governance; risk; uncertainty; drivers of change; trends; megatrends; synergy; wicked problems; black swans; wild cards; weak signals; non-linear systems; system of systems; impredicativity; complex vs. complicated systems; thin vs. thick present; the STEEP (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political) and DEGEST (Demographics, Economics, Governance, Environment, Society, and Technology) methods of classifying, analyzing, and evaluating the trends and their impacts • Advantages, limitations, and implicit assumptions • An analysis and outlook for the 15 Global Challenges assessed by The Millennium Project Futures Research Methodologies • Epistemology and types of futures studies; quantitative, qualitative, normative, and exploratory methods; pluralist approaches; the six pillars conceptual framework • Futures research methods: Environmental Scanning; Scenario Planning/Scenario Building; Trends Impact Analysis; Cross Impact Analysis; Causal Layered Analysis; Text/Data Mining; Delphi/Real-Time Delphi; Alternative Futures; Participatory methods – Futures Wheel and Charrette • Modelling: International Futures; General Morphological Analysis Global and Regional Futures: Case Studies • The partial failure of the anticipation of the fall of communism and Soviet-type societies in Central and Eastern Europe and of the end of the Cold War • The future of the EU-Russia relations in the context of shared neighborhood • The future of Europe in the context of the US-China relations • Other applications through class and individual written projects
Teachers:

• Adrian Pop ()

Entry requirements: no prior knowledge or background is needed
Assessment: written project in the form of a foresight exercise on a topic of the students’ own choosing using one or more foresight methods studied throughout the course.

The goal of this course is to a) equip students with concepts and techniques that are needed to access and analyse new data; b) formulate frontier research questions and answer them with techniques learned in the course; c) develop a critical understanding of the social and ethical dilemmas that characterise digital societies and research. The course will follow a ‘learning-by-doing’ approach that employs a ‘flipped classroom’ model to place emphasis on gaining hands-on experience in data collection and analysis. Students are expected to do the required readings and coding exercises for each week. The lectures will build upon the content of the readings with a series of data challenges that will introduce new statistical and programming concepts, which will then be applied to the analysis of data from published research papers or common tasks in computational social science. The course promotes a flexible, ‘problem-based’ approach to the choice of the computing environment. Some activities will require coding in either R or Python. Students are welcome to use other languages that are commonly used by computational social scientists that may allow them to efficiently solve problems, but we cannot guarantee that we can support them. Before the start of the first class, students are required to install a modern, stable-release version of R and RStudio, as well as Anaconda with Python 3.8 and make sure it is running. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/6c5437b3-4191-401e-97b1-ab6a5c456a9e/40989+Computational+Social+Science_a.a.2020-21.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nTn3o4e --- Schedule: go to https://didattica.unibocconi.eu/lezioni/index.php and search by code 40996.
Teachers:

• Nicolò Cavalli (Bocconi University)
• Dirk Hovy (Bocconi University)

Assessment: class participation (10%); coding challenges (30%); research project (60%)

The idea of meritocracy lays at the heart of economic policies in Europe. Presumably, talent, specialised skills and productivity should be correlated with larger salaries–or so was believed. In practice, several studies and official statistics reveal that the European labour market is segregated by many other factors including race, class, and gender. There are various examples: the European Commission estimates that sectors of the economy such as healthcare and hospitality are overrepresented by women (more than 70%), other experts have shown that individuals from minority backgrounds face more difficulties in finding jobs and are underrepresented in directive positions, as well as recent evidence has demonstrated that family backgrounds have direct impact on individuals’ incomes. Considering these facts, the present panel reflects broadly on the idea of meritocracy, with special reference to the challenges and opportunities in fostering equal market inclusion in Europe. Presenters • Luca Cigna, PhD Researcher at the European University Institute • William Foley, PhD Researcher at the European University Institute • Position vacant please apply Discussants • Prof. Dr. Angelo Martelli, Assistant Professor in European and International Political Economy at the LSE • TBC

The emergence of digital platforms has tested citizens and countries’ capacities to foster a dialogical, fact-based, and respectful public debate. While some observers sustain that such platforms have sparked political deliberation thereby expanding the traditional means of participation in European democracies, others mention that they have only polarised the political debate by leading it towards vitriolic public discussions that hinder democratic coexistence. This panel explores the perils of political deliberation, speech, and participation in the digital era by focusing on the socio-demographic, political and economic characteristics of online discussants and the more general consequences of their participation for the democratic system

The Pandemic of SARS-Covid-19 which started in December 2019 in Wuhan, and soon expanded to the world, is until today, one of the most documented events in global history. So far governments around the world have implemented several measures to curb the pandemic from strict lockdowns, promotion of online work and education and the implementation of various degrees of vaccination policies. In light of the third wave of Covid-19, this panel aims at reflecting on the variety of strategies utilised to fight against the Pandemic, the politicisation of otherwise expert knowledge utilisation in government (with reference to vaccination), and the dissonance between discourse and action of the European approach to vaccine distribution to Global South countries. Presenters • Ariel Bineth, PhD researcher at the Central European University • Position vacant please apply • Position vacant please apply Discussants • Prof. Dr. Mujaheed Shaikh, Professor of Health Governance at the Hertie School
Entry requirements: none

Since 2015, the politicisation of migration has intensified in the European Union. Several member states have seen a rise in political parties demanding border securitisation to prevent unwanted arrivals, while human rights observers are documenting systematic expulsions and other human rights violations against people on the move. The EU is blatantly failing to place hospitality and fundamental rights at the centre of its immigration policy. Many non-citizens are excluded from allegedly universal human rights and exposed to precarious legal status, expulsion orders and deportation. This panel reflects on these borders of human rights using the analytical toolkit of critical, feminist, and postcolonial theories. Presenters • Vera Wriedt, PhD Researcher at the Hertie School, Berlin Discussants • Dr. Begrüm Başdaş, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School.

Over the years, concepts such as national identity, gender, race, and sexuality have started to actively influence the public agenda across EU member states. In some cases, politicians and top national bureaucrats have cemented their policy approaches based on opposing views over these categories thereby choosing policy tools more akin to their views over others. Arguably, competing views about gender and identity have caused strong disagreements between some East-European countries and the EU Commission concerning issues about immigration, LGBTI+ rights, among others. Notably, the social construction of key target populations based on intersectional categories have rendered some policies more legitimate than others and have been differently absorbed by citizens thus affecting their political allegiances and participation. This panel aims at discussing the role of categories such as identity, gender, race, and sexuality in the social construction of target populations for policymaking purposes at European and national state levels. Presenters • Michał Gulczyński, PhD Researcher in Public Policy and Administration at Bocconi University Discussants • Dr. Martijn van den Brink, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Jacques Delors Centre of the Hertie School TBC

This course focuses on family demography and is structured as follows: Session 1 (21/03/2022): Theoretical perspectives in the study of the family; Session 2 (23/03/2022): Trends in gender roles, family behavior and structure; Session 3 (24/03/2022): Family formation and marriage; Session 4 (28/03/2022): Fertility; Session 5 (30/03/2022): Fertility and policies; Session 6 (31/03/2022): Divorce; Session 7 (4/04/2022): Parenting and Children; Session 8 (6/04/2022): Investing in Children; Session 9 (7/04/2022): The Allocation of Time between the Household and the Labour Market; Session 10 (11/04/2022): Public Policy and Family-work Reconciliation; Session 11 (13/04/2022): Social Mobility and Family Demographic Outcomes; Session 12 (14/04/2022): Research Papers/Projects Discussion Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/a2b8d711-c745-4c61-8001-1ea7c42e6f1b/40343_Esping-Andersen_Avd_topics_SocialDynamics+2021-22.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nTn2xM5
Teachers:

• Gøsta Esping-Andersen (Bocconi University)

In this course we will explore recent research related to entrepreneurship to understand the aspects of entrepreneurship that scholars have engaged with in leading research journals.Each session will be 2 hours long. I will not be lecturing; instead, we will have a discussion of the papers. Participants must read all the papers. In each session we will spend: (a) 30 minutes per paper X 3 papers per session= 1.5 hours. During this time one of the students will present the paper for 10 minutes and we will discuss the paper for the remaining 20 minutes. During the discussion, I will request students to comment on the definition of key concepts, assumptions, theoretical arguments, and their justification, conclusions, and theoretical/empirical significance of results, evaluation of the papers’ strengths and weaknesses, identified linkages to other papers, concepts and models. (b) 30 minutes to discuss research ideas. Each week, before class (previous day by midnight) students must submit a 500-word research proposal based on the readings. These write-ups should clearly state the question, how it follows from the readings, and how answering such a question may advance our understanding of the issues at hand. If you don’t have a research question, you can use this space to share your critiques and questions about the week’s readings. We will discuss the submitted research ideas in the final 30 minutes. Students must also prepare a book report. By the second session, students must select one of the books from the list provided at the end of the document (only one student per book). The report must provide a 1000 word summary of the book and a 1500 word discussion of future research avenues that ideas presented in the book motivates. --- Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/f5f2bc27-9a53-457e-8023-17cca5cce893/PILLAI+Advances+in+Entrepreneurship+syllabus+ay+2021_2022.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nHdzc7J --- Schedule: 29 March, 31 March, 5 April, 12 April, 14 April, 3 May from 10.20 to 11.50.
Teachers:

• Sandeep Devanatha Pillai (Bocconi University)

Assessment: Paper presentations: 10%; Weekly ideas: 30%; Book report: 30%; Class participation: 20%

This course introduces students to recent advances in textual analysis and big data analytics in accounting and finance. We will frame the discussion around fundamental questions related to the dynamics behind financial communication and their implications for financial markets. The goal is to give students both a solid understanding about some of the core questions in financial communication as well as how to measure fundamental concepts from textual or otherwise unstructured data. After the course, students should be able to develop new research questions in the area of corporate disclosure and financial communication as well as apply different methodologies to capture information from financial narratives. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/fe784871-cb84-405c-b59a-75bbba614036/41010+Accounting+7+Wanli+VP+Sextroh+21-22.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nSA4uAE
Teachers:

• Wanli Zhao (Bocconi University)
• Christoph Sextroh ()

Assessment: Grades for the course will be determined on the basis of the following components:  Class participation (20 points) - Paper presentations (20 points); - Homework assignments (20 points); - Research proposal (40 points)

In this “Entrepreneurship” course we will discuss concepts and ideas on how entrepreneurship can or should be researched. We will also apply concepts and ideas to real-life entrepreneurial phenomena, because it is hard to fully grasp entrepreneurship as a scholarly field without some direct, first-hand experience of the empirical phenomena. After a comprehensive treatment of entrepreneurship as societal phenomenon and scholarly domain, the core part of the course will discuss design, sampling, operationalization and analysis issues on several levels of analysis: individual, venture, firm, industry, region and nation. Numerous examples of problems and solutions from real research projects will be provided, as well as experience-based suggestions for further improvements in future work. This course implies a high level of personal involvement and contribution by participants. Please, read this syllabus very carefully before the beginning of the course.--- Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/c33885fb-ce2c-447f-bf2d-7f6331744719/SALVATO+Entrepreneurship+syllabus+2021_2022.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nWb0ZiY --- Schedule: 30/03, 06/04, 13/04, 27/04, 04/05, 11/05 from 8:30 to 11:50
Teachers:

• Carlo Salvato (Bocconi University)

Entry requirements: 1) Basic knowledge of management; 2) Basic knowledge of statistical methods for management research
Assessment: Attendance and active class participation (30%); final assignment (70%)

Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) is an interdisciplinary field that comprises macro, interpretive, and critical approaches to and perspectives of consumer behavior. Its approach refers to a family of theoretical perspectives that address the dynamic relationship between consumer actions, the marketplace, and cultural meanings. In this course, students will familiarize with the most important topics within the field of CCT and will build a knowledge base of discursive streams of academic theories about consumers and consuming. They will learn about the historical evolution of the field, the different theoretical terrains and roots, the disciplines that have contributed to its creation (anthropology, sociology, semiotics, cultural and media studies, etc.). Students will be exposed in a critical way to different theories and methods in order to stimulate the development of skills and intellectual capabilities necessary to pose proper research questions, and challenge existing theories. Moreover, they will be asked to use CCT theoretics in order to generate insights for their own current and future research projects. The classes will be structured on discussing the assigned readings. Students must complete all of the assignments (required readings and articles to be presented) before class. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/abf5424e-91cc-4ae5-8a9a-654b3b2547b1/BORGHINI+Topic+in+Marketing_Consumer+Culture+Theory+syllabus+ay+2021_2022.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nT3v2ze
Teachers:

• Stefania Borghini (Bocconi University)

Assessment: Class participation: 15%; Assignments (paper presentation and notes): 35%; Final research paper: 50%

The course will meet six times. Each meeting consists of two sessions. The course is structured as follows: Session 1: The Contours of Research in Social Mobility and Stratification; Session 2: Poverty in High-Income Countries; Session 3: Intergenerational Mobility; Session 4: Families and the Reproduction of Inequality; Session 5: European Social Policy & Social Investment; Session 6: Welfare States in Economic Crises; Session 7: Labour Markets & Labour Movements; Session 8: Globalization & Technological Change; Session 9: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration Session 10: Global Poverty & Inequality; Sessions 11 & 12: Presentation of course projects. Syllabus: https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/4607cd46-b281-4a03-b404-12dd8f5ec7ed/40294_Stratification-Bocconi-Parolin-2022.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=nS-TUah --- Schedule: go to https://didattica.unibocconi.eu/lezioni/# and search by code 40959
Teachers:

• Zachary Parolin (Bocconi University)

Assessment: Class Project (Written) – 50% of Grade; Class Project (Presentation) – 20% of Grade; Class Participation – 30% of Grade

PLEASE NOTE: CEU students should register at CEU (through SITS), not through CIVICA ESR Course Catalogue. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This is a methodological course on set-theoretic methods for the social sciences. While the spectrum of a set-theoretic methods is broad, including techniques such as Mill’s methods or typological theory, this course primarily focuses on the crisp-set and fuzzy-set versions of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Invented by Charles Ragin [1987], this technique is still undergoing modifications, improvements, and ramifications. These methods are applied in fields as diverse as political science, public policy, international relations, sociology, business and management studies, or even musicology (see www.compasss.org). This course aims at enabling students to produce a publishable QCA of their own. In order to achieve this, this course provides both the formal set theoretical underpinnings of QCA and the technical and research practical skills necessary for performing a QCA. All applied parts of the course will be performed in the R software environment, using RStudio (Cloud). The course is structured as follows. We start with some basics of formal logic and set theory. Then we introduce the notions of sets and how they are calibrated. After this, we move on to the concepts of causal complexity and of necessity and sufficiency, show how the latter denote subset relations, and then learn how such subset relations can be analyzed with so-called truth tables. We learn how to logically minimize truth tables and what the options for the treatment of so-called logical remainders are. Once students master the current standard analysis practice, we discuss several extensions and possible improvements of QCA. Depending on the needs and interests of participants, we choose several topics from the following list: set-theoretic multi-method research, i.e. the combination of QCA with follow-up within-case analyses; the integration of time into QCA; theory-evaluation in set-theoretic methods; or QCAspecific procedures for robustness tests. Since this is an advanced PhD course, students who plan to attend should first check for themselves and, in case of doubt, with me whether they fulfill the following requirements: Participants should have (a) some practical experience in empirical comparative social research; (b) undergone some thorough courses in basic research methodology; and (c) preferably some basic statistical training, or at least hands-on knowledge with some sort of spreadsheet programs (even if it is just Excel). The core readings of the course are Schneider and Wagemann [2012] and Oana et al. [2021]. Students who wish to take the course and need more information as to what the course is about are invited to skim through the first chapters of these books. From the beginning, we will use specialized software for performing the analytic steps learned in class. We will use R [R Core Team, 2020] and RStudio [RStudio Team, 2020] and within it, the packages QCA [Dusa, 2018] and SetMethods [Oana and Schneider, 2018]. A desired (and very likely) side effect of this course will be that participants not only increase their proficiency in R, but also that we engage into discussions on more general methodological issues of good comparative research, such as principles and practices of case selection, concept formation, measurement validity, and forms of causal relations.
Teachers:

• Carsten Schneider (Central European University)
• Nena (Ioana-Elena) Oana (European University Institute)

Entry requirements: a) practical experience in empirical comparative social research; (b) undergone some thorough courses in basic research methodology; and (c) basic statistical training/hands-on knowledge with a spreadsheet program
Assessment: Participation during synchronous meetings, including R coding exercises 20% Engagement with readings on Perusall 10% Quizzes 20% Homework R coding assignments 5% Final paper 45%