Education
Members of the core team are involved in the following courses and minor programmes that relate to research topics from the Futures of Democracy platform.
Dr. Devin Vartija is the coordinator and lecturer of the course ‘Democracy and Democratization’ in the master’s program History of Politics and Society. This is a popular elective course that charts the history of the ideas central to democratic governance from antiquity to the present, with a focus on the West but also with attention paid to non-Western societies.
Dr. Lars Behrisch is the coordinator and lecturer of the level 3 bachelor course ‘Democracy: Historical Perspectives and Philosophical Arguments’ in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program. This course traces the main historical contexts in which democracy has emerged as an idea, practice, and set of institution and read primary sources to be able to understand the thoroughgoing transformation of democracy across time and space.
Dr. David Napolitano is the coordinator and lecturer of the level 3 bachelor course ‘Cities and Citizenship’ in the honour history program. In this course, students explore the foundations of the modern citizen state by comparing it to Athenian democracy, the expanding citizenship in the Roman Empire and the citizenry in cities and city states during the medieval period.
Dr. Eva van Vugt is the coordinator and lecturer of the course ‘Political Institutions and Democracy’ within the master’s program ‘Staats- en Bestuursrecht.’ In this course, students investigate how democracy developed in the Netherlands, where the threats to the democratic content of governance lie, and shape is, or can be, given to democratic governance in a globalized and digitized country.
Dr. Lisanne de Blok is a lecturer in the course ‘Comparative Analysis of Political Institutions’ in the Utrecht School of Governance bachelor program. The course offers an introduction to the workings of institutions such as governments, parliaments, electoral systems, political parties and supra-national administration.