PhD POLITICAL SCIENCE, EUROPEAN POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
How the program is structured
First year students will develop methodological capabilities and research skills attending a series of courses and seminars. A wide variety of seminars, lectures and workshops allows second year students to strengthen their general political science knowledge and to deep-dive in the chosen research field. International research activity is integral part of the second year program. The third year is completely dedicated to developing and finalizing the PhD thesis. At the end of the teaching program PhD students will choose on the basis of their topic where to go abroad and/or to spend their research time in Pisa or Siena. All across the program students are expected to present their work regularly in appropriate research seminars. Each student will be assigned a tutor from the beginning of the program. The tutor might become the thesis’ supervisor.
The program integrates two main tracks:
The ‘Comparative politics and European Studies’ track consists in a number of basic courses providing an introduction to research design, statistical methods applied to social sciences and a comprehensive overview of the discipline as well as specialised courses that cover the main sectors of the discipline (comparative political behaviour, comparative study of parties and institutions, public opinion research, European politics and policy).
The 'International Relations' track consists in a number of courses and seminars which rest upon a mandatory core (IR theory, foreign policy analysis, international political economy), and span across a broader gamut of elective interdisciplinary offerings in international studies (EU & international law, political philosophy & global studies, conflict & security studies), as well as seminars on qualitative methods and on the web as a research environment.
