ST-400 Political Systems and Governance (Autumn 2025)

Upon sucessfull completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• understand the multifaceted aspects of governance
• analyze the different aspects of governance, both the levels of governance, the tools of governance as well as the modes of governance
• understand policy networks, how they work, and what challenges they pose for democratic accountability
• evaluate the role of leadership a networks, both possibilities and limitations
• understand and critically assess different types of multilevel governance, especially within the context of the European Union

Climate change, artificial intelligence, economic emergencies, war, migration, and terrorism currently challenge the robustness of political systems and governance. Several of these challenges span territorial boundaries, political systems and administrative boundaries and as a result are difficult to handle. This is particularly the case when urgency is high, time is short, and solutions are quickly needed. It is also the case for political systems and governing institutions facing novel challenges without much history. Recent years have also seen a shift in the structuring and governing of the public sector. Increasing complexity and societal dynamics has challenged governing by single-unit institutions – what is commonly named “government”. In effect, emphasis has shifted towards interaction between diverse set of actors, often named “governance”. This shift has upgraded the role of supplementary forms of public service provision, notably networked forms.

This course shows that networked forms of governance take both horizontal and vertical forms. The course also shows that new forms of governance supplement ‘old’ forms of government. As new governance models represent a shift of power constellations it is also important to understand how existing power-centers adapt to the new policy networks, how the networks function, and how they change.

The course offers an introduction to the concept of governance and engages in a conversation on ways of theorizing it. The course focuses both on established and novel forms of governance – that is, through public organizations like government ministries, regulatory agencies, international bureaucracies, municipalities as well as through networks and multilevel governing systems. Since public governance mainly takes place by and through public organizations, the course discusses how different organizational designs lead to different forms of public governance.

6 hours individual written exam on campus with graded assessment A-F.