PLCP 3110

Professor Alexander is a great guy and a great lecturer. He is passionate and quick with the lessons, but you have to attend class in order to pick up on a lot of information. I would say that in order to do well, you have to combine the readings that he assigns with attendance in lecture. He does assign A LOT of reading. It takes a really serious dedication to staying up to date with all of the information that is in the readings, and if you fall behind it will certainly have a negative effect on your ability to write the papers for this course. However, I did not have a difficult time when it came to grading. Attending office hours is pretty important to shoot ideas by him but overall it can be managed very well. I wouldn't be afraid of this course. It's a little bit on the tougher side, but it's a rewarding course that gives you a lot of information on countries like Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and others.

If you're interested in the political history of Western Europe, you'll find this class interesting. Lectures and readings are focused on arguments explaining democratic stability, economic outcomes, etc. I personally thought the readings were quite dull and lectures were hit or miss. Had no problems with Prof. Alexander, just not the most thrilling class. Discussions ended up kind of like a second lecture, which might appeal to some people but scare off others. The class consists of two 4-page papers and a final exam. The first paper was graded quite harshly, but grading was eased up on the second. The final exam was very fair, and you can get by without doing all of the readings, but make sure to go over the ones he discusses in lecture, as those are the most important ones. Overall, I'd call it an average class that I wouldn't necessarily recommend unless you're into the topic.

I really liked this class and especially Professor Alexander. Some people seem to be complaining about him or his lecture style, but personally, I found him really engaging and his lectures very interesting, even over Zoom. One thing I really appreciated was how clear and manageable the assignments of this class were. Besides participation in discussion section, you only have two short papers (4 pages each) and a final (5 pages) for the whole semester. The prompts for each of these were very easy to respond to, because most of the arguments you could make were theories we discussed in class. For example, a prompt would ask if you thought ideas, interests, or institutions were the primary reason for a particular democratic outcome. If you wanted to argue that institutions were the reason, then we would have discussed in class an author who argued exactly that. So, to write the paper, you simply had to go back to that reading and make your own argument based off of it. This leads me to my last point, which is that although there were a lot of readings for this class, you could easily get by without doing most of them. Firstly, we discussed most of the readings in class anyways, so as long as you payed attention in lecture, you got the information you needed. Then, when it came time to write the essays, you just had to go through the few readings relevant to your argument, pull out some extra details, and sprinkle in a few quotes. Overall, I really enjoyed this class because I found the material interesting, the professor engaging, and the workload highly manageable. Great class, would definitely recommend.

This class is lecture-based; the slides Prof. Alexander are the bare minimum of what you need to know. Doing the readings every week is necessary because you need to cite them (a lot) in the papers. There were two 4 page papers and a final (which was also a paper this semester but usually is an exam). The paper topics usually direct you towards one certain argument to write about because it can be hard to find evidence from the readings for other arguments. The readings don't really provide a full-scope of what is covered in lecture. I personally had a bad experience with Prof. Alexander; I found him to be very rude and not open to other opinions/viewpoints. However, don't let that dissuade you from taking the class to fill the comparative politics requirement. The grade breakdown is 20% section participation, 50% papers, and 30% final exam. I had Firat as my TA. Discussion themselves were fine, but I found him to be very picky about how he wanted the papers structured.

Professor Alexander is a mainly vocal lecturer, he doesn't rely on slides heavily, so often notetaking was reliant on whatever he said and not from powerpoints. Personally, I hadn't had a professor like this before, so it was somewhat challenging at first. Unfortunately, there were multiple classes where I'd fall asleep during lecture not necessarily out of boredom, but due to Professor Alexander's voice. The information, however, is very interesting and gives a pretty good insight into Western European politics. A lot of the electoral and political systems we discussed are largely applicable across the world. Overall, I recommend the class but be prepared to pay attention during lecture.

This class is well organized and expectations are very clear, so if you follow these an A is very doable. Knowing some readings well will get you an A on the essays, but you can pick and choose which ones you skim and which you actually read. The TAs for this class are great, so get their feedback before you submit each of the essays. The class is a little reductionist (he so badly wants the 5 nations we cover to fit into neat categories), but politics/related majors will definitely benefit from all the practice applying theoretical articles to current and historical trends. Overall, he's a pretty lively lecturer, and this class provides some helpful frameworks & skills to take with you.

The grading criteria is ridiculous and you'll never know how he will punish you for what unny reasons.

Professor Alexander is nice, relative engaging lecture but does not post slides. Attendance slips throughout the semester because of class format which is 2 papers (easy to do without a full grasp of class concepts) and one final. This class REALLY depends on your TA, I had Shane (Hsuan Lin) who was amazing (fair grader, awesome review, and easy discussion participation) but I've heard of other people who weren't as lucky. Relatively easy to get a B+ but anything higher is up in the air.

Being in Professor Alexander's class was fun and entertaining. Although he is a fast talker and sometimes goes off on tangents, his lectures, given freely without the help of presentations, are highly interesting and engaging (if you choose to engage yourself; otherwise, you might doze off from the inability to keep up). The workload wasn't a struggle to keep up with and grading was not too harsh, but I will warn that workloads come in waves-- every few weeks, there will be a large essay assignment that requires a lot of reading, analyzing notes, and researching. But, if you're interested in the topic, these argumentive essay assignments can be fun (he lets you take your own standpoint on issues which for me was both challenging and fun). My TA, Hsuan Lin, was extremely helpful and broke things down for us to understand, while also providing helpful study materials. I learned a lot from this class and would definitely recommend it!

I really enjoyed this class and I think anyone interested in European politics/history should take it. Professor Alexander doesn't post the lectures online so you HAVE to go to class or at least get the notes from a friend. At first I thought the amount of reading for this class was insane because the syllabus would have about 3 hours of reading after every lecture. However, in my discussion we were each required to sign up to summarize one night of reading and the summaries would be posted on the discussion collab for us to read. This made writing the papers so much easier since you needed 6 sources for a 4 page paper to get full points for the work cited part. Overall I thought this class was very manageable and a B+/A- is attainable as long as you put a lot of time into the papers. Hsuan-Yu Lin was an incredible TA who made us summary charts from the lectures and spent a long time going over the essay prompts so that we didn't write the completely wrong thing since (this was super helpful because Professor Alexander's prompts were basically essays in themselves). Professor Alexander is an incredible lecturer and I am really glad I took this class!

Whilst this is not an easy course for any extent of the imagination, the Politics of Western Europe is a worthwhile course to take for any prospective politics major. I took this course in the second semester of my first year, and thoroughly enjoyed the way the content was presented in lecture and how the course was structured in order for students that wanted to succeed to succeed. This is not a course for people that want to slack off for a semester, since Professor Alexander doesn't post the lecture slides on Collab and a lot of the material is gathered from what he speaks about during lecture. This makes going to lecture obligatory if you want to succeed in this course. Also, whilst it may seem like a lot of reading, only a few of them are truly essential. Also it is important to note that there isn't any homework, so therefore, your grade is highly dependent on the 2 papers and the final exam.

TA Hsyuan-Yu was the best and always made discussion exciting. The class itself was very informative and relatively easy in terms of workload. Yet the essays and final were graded harshly and the readings were easily over 100 pages a night. The professor had even curved all the discussion grades downward at the end of semester. Don't take this class if you want to save your GPA.

This class was a mixed bag. The lectures themselves are very interesting, as Alexander doesn't just read from slides, and makes the lectures story-based. His focus is causal homogeneity and "ideas, interests, and institutions", which are often frustrating to categorize into (but make essays a breeze). The course is pretty easy; 2 essays, a final, and discussion. Alexis Yang was a phenomenal TA, always making study packets for us, and providing good feedback on essays. I recommend slogging through the readings; it can be boring and difficult, but my study guide for the end of the year was gold for the final because of it. Overall, a pretty reasonable and interesting politics course.

This was definitely a worthwhile class. The reading was absolutely insane at times, but reading the material it its entirety wasn't necessary to do well in the course. There were two four-page papers required for the course, as well as a final. The papers were not as bad as people have made them out to be. The prompts typically gave you some freedom in your response, which was nice. You could really manipulate the class readings and lectures to suit your argument, which I enjoyed. My TA, Olyvia, was always very accommodating and willing to meet with me about my paper as well. Expectations for the class were clear, and I did find the lectures rather interesting. However, he would really fly through the powerpoints at lightning speed, so don't even think about copying down a graph from there - you won't make it. The discussion sections were laid back, which was nice because participation in discussion was easy if you had any background on the material and listened in class. I ended up not being able to complete a fair amount of the readings, but still ended up with an A in the course. Definitely would recommend.

Two 4-page papers, a final exam, and participation. The essays are graded VERY harshly, no matter how much you discuss the prompt or an outline with the professor/TA. Lectures are pretty interesting, although too much time is devoted to certain topics (GB, France) and not enough to others (Spain and Franco). Alexander is an engaging lecturer but the class would be so much better if it was more structured and straightforward. If you are really interested and invested in the topic I would recommend, otherwise I would not recommend it.

This was a really great course. Professor Alexander made the material really interesting to learn, and our grade was 2 papers, a final, and discussion. I had Daniel as my TA, and he's really knowledgeable. I wouldn't say he's a harsh grader, but he's definitely picky about making sure you write the right things. His discussion sections were quite helpful actually, and complemented lecture. He gave a lot of great advice on the outlines of the paper, and overall was just a great TA. I went to Alexander's OH a couple times, and you can tell he's definitely passionate about the topic. He's a little intimidating, sure, but a fabulous resource if you're ever confused about anything. A lot of reading (which can all be found on Collab) but otherwise a pretty manageable course. One of my favorite classes at UVA so far, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone interested in learning about Europe.

I would recommend this course, with some caveats.
First of all, Alexander is an excellent lecturer, and the material he presents is fascinating. However, he does tend to repeat himself at times and go on tangents that really are not relevant to the material we were tested on. Also, Alexander would give up to 200 pages of reading for one lecture -- which is excessive and the majority of it never even applied to what we were discussing in lecture.
Secondly, the discussion section for this class was the single most useless discussion section I have ever encountered at my time at the University. My TA (Olyvia) was terrible. Our discussion section included things like watching The Crown and The Iron Lady -- both are excellent programs, so thanks for the Netflix recommendation, Olyvia, but watching them didn't really help improve my grade at all. When I went to her office hours to discuss my first essay, she looked at my outline for 10 seconds and said "looks good" without even reading it. When I asked for clarification about one of my points, only then did she actually take the time to read it and said "ohhhh, yeah. You should definitely rework that entire section." I ended up getting a B+ on the essay, which she told me was an "excellent grade" because Alexander wanted a B- as the average for the class. Previous grade distributions on vagrades.com didn't support that to be true. There were no grades recorded for the entire semester in Collab, and a substantial part of your final grade is participation. Olyvia told us that if we were honest in our self-evaluations that we would get an A (I later found out that she gave me an 89?). I had no clue what my participation grade or final grade breakdown was until after the semester ended, so I emailed Olyvia about it, and she took five days to respond. Conveniently for her, she wanted until the day after final grades were due to reply.
Take the class, but be wary of the fact that your TA controls your entire grade. Make sure to get a good one.

One of my favorite courses taken at UVA, taught by one of my favorite professors. Concerning professors who teach the same course each year, tweaking it each time, this course is perhaps the best-refined course I have taken in my time at UVA. The professor has the course down to a science. He also happens to be one of the best lecturers I have encountered as an undergrad. He spends the first few lectures relaying some basic theory of comparative politics, before engaging in a sequential study of 5 countries in Western Europe, ending the semester with a brief look at the European Union. The five countries studied are: the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Three issues are of interest when studying each country: democratic stability, party systems, and political economy. The professor (somewhat questionably) approaches history scientifically, seeking to gain some explanatory power as regards the varying historical outcomes in post-WWII Western Europe. The professor offers three potential explanations (ideas, interests, institutions) for the three issues at hand. Lectures are rich, straightforward, and fascinating. Discussion section left a bit to be desired. My TA, Olyvia, made the most of what was a relatively undefined meeting requirement. She always solicited our feedback and was open-minded about the activities we might fill our time with. The nature of discussion section ranged from discussion of lecture and the readings to group work to watching first-hand videos on Western European politics. 20% of the course grade came from attendance at and participation in discussion section. The remainder of the course grade was divided between two papers (25% each) and a final exam (30%). The prompts for the papers were straightforward. You were given an issue area (democratic stability, party systems, political economy) and made to explain historical outcomes regarding that issue area using whichever argument (ideas, interests, institutions) made the most sense to you. You could pull examples from any countries that had been studied up to that point. Though the lectures were useful for framing the question at hand, it was essential that you back up your ideas with quotes from the readings. Therefore, it was important to do the readings not only for purposes of discussion section, but also for use when writing the essays. The final exam also had a couple of essays of this sort (though you had to prepare for all essay possibilities, as you did not learn the essay prompts until sitting for the exam, whereas with the take-home essays you had a week after receiving the prompt to write them). The final exam also had a section for IDs, which was pretty straightforward. All in all, the course was extremely interesting and fun, as well as challenging without being difficult. I absolutely would recommend this course to any student with any interest in history or politics.

Honestly, favorite class at UVA. Loved the material, and the professor. Yes, Gerard tended to dive extremely in to certain things that weren't the most relevant or helpful, but he would always get us he material we needed to know one way or another. You'll spend half the semester covering Britain and France, which is unfortunate because you get so little time to do Germany, Italy, and Spain. But there was never a time where I didn't think the material was interesting. It's a ton of work, with tons of reading assigned before every class. You don't have to do all of them, I would just read the first half of a some of them and as long as you got the jist, you're good to go. But when those essays come, sit down, and spend every day you can working on them. Catch up on the readings during that time, and treat that essay like it's everything, because they'll make the difference between B's and A's. If you can develop your argument well and in an organized way, you will get above a B+. But you honestly can't wait until the last minute. Final isn't bad at all, some essays and ID's. TLDR- work super hard on the essays and enjoy this class!

Don't take it if you don't have to. This guy is a tough, tough grader, and while he is knowledgable about his field, it is not a rewarding experience. You will come out with a better understanding of Western European political structures, but the class isn't worth it.

Professor Alexander is fantastic. He is very fun and entertaining and makes the material fun to learn if you aren't already interested. Class is not particularly difficult. Focus on the readings that your TA emphasizes and go to lecture and you'll be fine. One of my favorite politics classes here at UVa

This class has a shit ton of reading (more than my other two classes put together). Alexander is really passionate about the topic and you can see that from how fast he talks, how much info he tries to fit in 50 mins and how many times he digresses into little anecdotes (that were helpful, at least for me, in remembering the info). There are two 4 pages double spaced papers and a final that is pretty much formatted like the midterm papers. I never did the readings, skipped three classes and got an A-.

Great class. Alexander is really passionate and interesting. You don't really have to do all the readings. I would suggest going to lecture and focusing on the readings he mentions in class.

Good class; learned a lot, and it was worthwhile.

A very strange class. Basically, Professor Alexander tries to force the political history of Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, and Spain into easily compared and contrasted bullet points. Alexander is obsessed with the idea of relating the ideas, interests, and institutions that affect policy in these 5 countries, expect to hear these terms ad nauseum and be sure to understand them the way Gerard wants you to or your TA is going to grade you poorly. In many ways, this class seems to attempt to straddle the gap between a first year-level intro course in comparative politics and a more in-depth lecture series on western european domestic politics since world war I. I'm not sure it was entirely successful, as often times lofty and broad ideas were awkwardly shoehorned into a few narrow categories.
As for Alexander, he's an enthusiastic but somewhat ineffective lecturer in a large class. He infuriatingly insists on lecturing to word documents, which he always forgets to scroll through and then fires past 2 pages of important points that you can't get anywhere else. He also has a habit of getting hung up on something simple or even irrelevant in the first 30 minutes of lecture, leading to rushed explanations of key topics.
The amount of reading for the class is preposterous given what you're ultimately required to know for the papers and exam. Both the central textbook and the dozens of Collab readings will often go unmentioned in lecture and discussion. Ultimately, knowing 10 or so collab readings fairly well will give you everything you need to know for all assignments.
Overall, if you're clever about how you take this class you can do very well with very little work. However, the lectures don't offer much insight outside of the confines of what Professor Alexander wants you to write about, so that class has little bearing on other courses I've taken on European politics. Sarah Eskew is a friendly and fair TA, she can clear up something for you if Gerard has confused the class, and your TA's opinion is the only thing that really matters for your class grade in this instance.

Not a very hard class, but tedious. Never went to lecture and still got a B+. My TA showed us movies in discussion and the whole thing was kind of a joke. Def not the easiest course ever, but if you try I'm sure it would be

The class was good at explaining the basic situations in the 5 countries it looked at. It had a lot of reading. Alexander is a good lecturer but talks extremely fast so that you cannot write notes on all that he is saying. He also didn't use a microphone in the lecture hall which made him sometimes hard to hear so sit close to the front.

I enjoyed Alexander as a lecturer, but sometimes I had trouble with the way he categorized Western European politics. Often,things seemed to be confused chronologically and categorizing countries was difficult especially with such precarious differences between them. Don't let it discourage you though if comparative politics is your strong suit! It definitely isn't mine. Sarah Eskew is a nice TA, though in my opinion a difficult grader. However, if you ask her questions, she easily explains things to you with enthusiasm.

Good class, depends on your TA likely but Alexander is lively and clearly knows his stuff. He is a no nonsense guy in that if you obviously didn't read and you asked a question he will call you out on it. He seems to be big on respect in that aspect, respecting him by not talking etc... but nonetheless he generally a nice easy going guy. His lectures were interesting and very detailed/helpful.

lots of reading. boring and really fast paced

Least favorite professor at UVA. For some reason could never understand students' questions and would mock them rather than answer. He moved too slowly through lectures for the first 40 minutes of class and would then rush through half the scheduled lecture in the last ten minutes, making it impossible to take down notes. He also had his notes projected during class on a word document but would frequently forget about it and not move the page down, making it hard to follow along. I have not met a single person who enjoyed this class.

Professor Alexander is an enthusiastic lecturer, but tends to just get excited and shout about the same thing all class. He covers material extremely slowly and explains it in the most verbose manner possible. I generally only took one page of notes each class because he repeated himself so often. Also, his wordiness makes its way into his essay prompts. He took up half a page of paper describing what he wanted us to do for the first paper. I would not recommend taking this class unless you absolutely have to learn about Western Europe.

Tough

Good class, covers material on UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, EU. Alexander's a good lecturer, does have an overhead outline during class but does not post them to COLLAB so go to class! Sarah Eskew is a great TA

The material was interesting and Alexander is an enthusiastic professor. That said, there is a lot of reading, a lot of the readings seem to contradict each other, Alexander can go off on lots of tangents and confuse you, and he doesn't post his notes on Collab so you have to scribble them down real fast (he doesn't allow laptops). I wouldn't take this class, especially if you haven't taken PLCP before. But, Sarah Eskew was a pretty good TA. She's energetic, helps you understand the material for the most part, and grades fairly.

Alexander is a great lecturer and I learned a lot about the history and context of European political systems. However, there is a LOT of reading. Most of the reading is pretty approachable and you don't have to do all of it to understand what Alexander is talking about. How well you do in the class really depends on how hard your TA grades

Alexander is an okay lecturer. He tries to be funny but most of his jokes are lame. He is very knowledgeable of the subject but sometimes what he says doesn't correlate with the readings. Take this class if you are really interested in politics, if not, it'll bore you to death.

I don't understand where all the good reviews come from--lectures usually consisted of Alexander ranting about a specific, and usually simple, subject for the first half of the class, then rushing through the useful topics. Also, a lot of the readings made little sense, to the point where our TA flat-out told us not to use their arguments in our papers.

I loved Alexander - I don't know why everyone thought the class was so difficult. As long as you focus on the readings that HE discusses at length in class, you're fine. I got an A without killing myself and doing 60-70% of the reading. Papers are only four pages and there are only two of them, so not so bad there.

I really don't see why this class has such great reviews. Professor Alexander's lectures are boring and repetitive. Alexander will also go on several rants over the course of the semester on everything from why you can't use laptops to why forming study groups is a violation of the honor code. He will tell long boring stories and then rush through the essentials of the 50 minute lecture in 10. I would not recommend this class to anyone. Your success in this class depends completely on your TA.

Fantastic class. Really tough to get a good grade in this class, but it was more than worth it. Lots of required reading but only 1/3 of it is reallyy heavily emphasized for the papers and final blue-book exam.

The class was very interesting, and the professor was a great lecturer.

Lots of reading, but interesting class. Alexander is an enthusiastic lecturer.

The class is really interesting, the lectures can be repetitive sometimes and there's a lot of dense reading.
But overall its not a hard class as long as you do most of the readings, cause the grade is mainly two short papers and a final.

Alexander is an absolutely amazing lecturer and definitely knows his stuff. The reading load is heavy -over the course of the semester, you'll write 6 one page response papers comparing the weeks' readings. Two major papers (4 pages each) are do-able. Alexander gives a great introduction to theories of comparative poltics while applying broader concepts to case studies in europe. Loved this class-- highly recommended!!

This course is basically a fusion of comparative politics theory and modern European political history. Alexander does an excellent job of giving you the basics of the former so you can then apply it to the latter, which is ripe with case studies. Try to keep up with lecture (the readings can be fairly dense and scattered) and get a decent TA and this should be a very good experience in which you learn to stand a lot.

Great class, great professor! Grade is based mainly on 2 short papers and a final.

Very good class, Alexander is a lecturer who tries to keep things interesting. It is basically a modern history of Western Europe. Midterms and papers are moderatly difficult but not terrible. Very worthwhile class.

Good comparison of the governments of Italy, Spain, Germany, France, and Great Britain