The aim:
1. Providing student with basic knowledge regarding: various systems of government, types of legal order, and political doctrines of contemporary world, as well as their role in the modern society.
2. Acquiring skills in: using terminology of law, government and politics; recognising and applying basic methods of legal reasoning; recognising and comparing different systems of government, legal orders and political doctrines.
3. Gaining cultural and communicational competences making student able to participate in a public discourse concerning legal and political issues.

Acquired knowledge:
1. Student understands the essence of government and its functions.
2. Student understands the essence of law and its functions.
3. Students knows basic concepts of political and legal science.

Acquired skills:
1. Student properly uses legal language and language of political science.
2. Student recognises various types of legal system, systems of government and political ideologies.
3. Student is able to compare and assess independently the practice of functioning of central authorities in various forms and systems of governments.

Acquired social skills:
1. Student is able to communicate legal and political problems using professional terminology, as well as to explain these problems to laymen.
2. Student realises complex social, economic, and moral consequences of legal and political decisions.
3. Student thinks and acts in a self-reliant and critical manner.

Course contents: 
1. Introduction to the course. Objectives and content of the course. Law and government in contemporary societies.
2. Basic concepts of political science.
3. Government and its ideology: Ideology, political doctrine, politics, political culture and socialization.
4. Various doctrines of government.
5. The political process: political parties, interest groups and social movements. The organization of interests, communications media, elections and electoral system.
6. Structure and forms of government: Liberal democracy and welfare state, autocratic systems, totalitarianism.
7. Law as a complex concept. Functions of law. Notions of legal order, legal culture, and legal practice.
8. Legal system. Various types of legal systems (municipal law, local law, international law, transnational law). Public and private law.
9. Basic families of legal order.
10. Sources of law and law creating in various legal systems.
11. Legal rules and principles.
12. Interpreting statutes: the notion and methods of statutory interpretation.
13. Interpreting precedents: the doctrine of precedent, ratio finding, distinguishing, and overruling.
14. Separation of powers – legislature, executive, judiciary. Checks and balances.
15. Forms of governments: monarchy, oligarchy, theocracy, anarchy, dictatorship, democracy.
16. Rule of law and Democratic state ruled by law. Representative democracy vs. direct democracy.
17. Systems of government.
18. Human Rights.

Recommended reading: 
1. The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law, Rosenfeld M., Sajo A. (ed.), Oxford University Press. Oxford 2012
2. The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Europe and Latin America, 3rd ed., Merryman JH, Stanford University Press. Stanford 2007
3. Politics in a Changing World. A Comparative Introduction to Political Science, Ethridge M., Handelman H., Wadswoth. Boston 2008

Additional reading: 
1. Introduction to Law and Legal Language, Pichlak M. (ed.), working material. 2015
2. An Introduction to Comparative Law, Zweigert K., Kotz H., Clarendon Press. varia
3. Legal Method and Reasoning, Hanson S., Cavendish. 2003
4. Constitutional Law in Poland, Banaszak B. (ed.), Wolters Kluwer. 2012
5. Introduction to Polish Law, Bodnar A., Frankowski S., Wolters Kluwer. 2005
6. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, Lijphard A., Yale University Press. 2010
7. The Human Rights Encyclopedia, Lewis J.R., Skutsch C., Sharpe Reference. 2001
8. Outline of Polish Constitutional Law, Banaszak B., Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego. 2005
9. English, French & German Comparative Law, 3rd ed., Young R., Routledge. 2014
10. An Introduction to Law, 7th ed., Harris P., Cambridge UP. 2007
11. Comparative Law in a Changing World, 2nd ed., DeCruz P., Cavendish. 1999