Introduction

In the twenty-first century, television has become the new medium of choice for story-driven creatives tackling interesting subjects, including politics. Serialised storytelling is less constrained than in films with shorter runtimes, leading writers to explore more complex topics in the sphere of politics. Although much of the discussion about contemporary television’s new creative success has focused on American television series (for example, see Sepinwall Reference Sepinwall2013; Schlütz Reference Schlütz2016), there has been a corresponding major increase in the distribution of international television series (Lobato Reference Lobato2018). This increases opportunities for instructors to utilise television in class to illustrate an extended set of topics and themes, especially as global pop culture is becoming more diverse: European public broadcasters took notice of the success of fictional political dramas in the U.S. and pushed for their own productions. Additionally, we have seen the rise of global streaming platforms (e.g., Netflix), which intentionally place original productions in international settings to gain new audiences and market authentic products to viewers worldwide (Jenner Reference Jenner2018).

Political scientists have, of course, frequently taught classes using movies as texts before (O’Meara Reference O’Meara1976; Funderburk Reference Funderburk1978; Engert and Spencer Reference Engert and Spencer2009; Valeriano Reference Valeriano2013, among others). Pedagogical studies of film and television in political science have typically emphasised movies, which, considering their runtime, are easier to integrate into a course. However, there are fewer analyses of the use of television series, and many publications come from neighbouring disciplines. One prominent exception is The Wire, which was widely praised as a new form of social science fiction for its chronicling of different aspects of political life in the American city of Baltimore over five seasons (Ashworth 2010; Chaddha and Wilson 2010). In general, political science pedagogy has not adequately considered how to best integrate television series into the classroom. In part, this is because TV shows have to be screened more carefully: segments and episodes to be used in class must be introduced so that students can follow the plot, a consideration not necessary when watching a standalone film. But at the same time, popular TV shows have often been consumed by the students before, so revisiting them in the classroom and adding a layer of political science can increase student interest and make complex political structures and processes more accessible. Woodcock (Reference Woodcock2008) illustrates this argument in his pedagogical discussion of how to use The Simpsons to spark discussion about political issues. The focus of pedagogical publications often revolves around American society and politics; there are fewer examples where non-U.S. productions are discussed to integrate the medium of TV as text. This article illustrates the untapped potential for utilising TV series for a comparative politics and European studies curriculum.

In this paper, we systematically discuss how to integrate television series as text in comparative politics courses, providing illustrations using non-U.S. productions in the context of an introductory European politics course. TV shows can be especially helpful vehicles to learn about the political systems of other countries, as the depiction of politics in other settings can visually transport students and illuminate broader societal and cultural conditions more vividly than textbooks or articles alone (Van Belle Reference Van Belle2017). First, we look at the television studies literature to delineate the role of fictional stories in pedagogy and the benefits to the classroom. We also review the literature on teaching using television series and political television series themselves. Second, we discuss and illustrate three methods of integrating television series into comparative politics courses: showing clips, screening full episodes, and using a single series as text. In some cases, we draw on our own experience in the classroom to provide suggested discussion points. For the discussion of a full series as text, we focus on Borgen, a successful series about Denmark’s first (fictionalised) female Prime Minister. We have successfully used segments and episodes from Borgen in teaching, and we provide conceptual examples of how the series can be used in class to demonstrate course concepts and stimulate discussion. We conclude by discussing how our suggestions can be applied to other courses as well.

Studying television and politics

There is extensive research in the field of television studies about the relevance of the screen for politics at large. For a long time, the empirical study of media and politics has been consumed with analyses of the impact of televised news. However, there is increasing attention on the impact of entertainment and fiction, as these also incorporate politics and make up a larger part of the average media diet (Aalberg et al. Reference Aalberg, Blekesaune and Elvestad2013). Fictionalised series use politics in service of a fundamentally different type of storytelling from what is generally provided by the news and documentaries (Holbert Reference Holbert2005). Gamson (Reference Gamson, Gerhards and Hitzler1999) argues that fictionalised series, in comparison to nonfiction television, offer lifeworld content that engages the audience on an emotional level, bases truth claims on experiential knowledge, and treats the audience as being physically present within the program. Together, these provide the opportunity to immerse students more fully than showing a documentary might.

Series offer a different, more engrossing frame for political issues and can use some of the same storytelling techniques that politicians themselves use. Neumann and Nexon (Reference Neumann, Nexon, Neumann and Nexon2006) note that political actors are successful in generating followers or organising majorities through the use of convincing political narratives, just as fictional stories do. These fictional stories have pedagogical value because they can efficiently and persuasively communicate information to viewers. Some of the most popular series, such as The Simpsons, can rely on widespread recognition around the world, allowing instructors to make easily understood references and rely on students’ existing experience with the show, which in turn makes it easier for instructors to tie in additional information that they would like students to understand (Cantor Reference Cantor1999).

Any individual series will naturally be perceived differently by students. Holbert (Reference Holbert2005) accordingly designed a typology, categorising titles along the two dimensions of audience expectations and the significance of a political message for the show. One resulting category is “fictional political dramas”, which are explicitly grounded in political settings, leading the audience to expect messages that focus on inherently political issues. Nevertheless, these messages have different layers. Beneath overtly political plots there is also political messaging embedded in the program. Holbert finds satire is more implicit in its political messaging, a consequence of the goal to make the audience laugh and not engage them in a suspenseful story. Satire, however, provides a valuable entry point to viewers who might be less engaged and helps to illustrate alternative viewpoints on a particular issue (Yates Reference Yates, Yates and Hill2018: 41). Eilders and Nitsch (Reference Eilders and Nitsch2015) further refine Holbert’s factor of significance of a political message into two dimensions: political intensity (inclusion of political and sociopolitical issues, political characters, and state officials) and degree of realism (concerning events, characters, time, and places). We rely on this logic to select titles that score high on all these variables, as the pedagogical impact in the context of a comparative politics class is assumed to be the highest for these series. Baym (Reference Baym2017) focuses on the hybridity that drives an overlap of news and narratives and inspects three “public affairs dramas”. For him, the shape of a television series makes it special as “these programs develop rich and realistic characters engaged in slowly accruing plot lines, located within complicated and highly rendered social worlds” (Baym Reference Baym2017: 17). Indeed, he finds that even if it is clear that Borgen was not meant to offer a literal or factual portrayal of Danish politics, in pursuit of fascinating the viewers and driving rational engagement of the audience with the political realities illustrated on the show, the storyline was never allowed to stray too far from reality.

In this sense, by simultaneously depicting political realities while seeking to provide entertainment, audiences are able to benefit from the affective and emotional investment of engagement in a television series (Holland Reference Holland2019: 73–94). Nærland (Reference Nærland2019) finds that viewers who generally are less interested in social issues state that some television series made them reflect on politics. Parsemain (Reference Parsemain2016) calls this engagement “critical involvement”, which allows an audience to both engage with real world knowledge and the fictionalised environment. For viewers whose overall orientation does not constitute a strong public connection, the engagement with political realism appears to provide them with a link to the world of politics in the absence of other connective practices. In the classroom, achieving critical involvement will allow students to similarly benefit and engage with course materials in ways beyond what they may be able to do with lectures and discussions alone.

Political scientists have built on this research in television studies and have increasingly engaged with television series as a medium, both as a reflection of politics and an influence on politics, in both American and international contexts.Footnote ¹ Granville (Reference Granville2009) assesses the impact of Yes, Minister on British political opinion. Chow et al. (Reference Chow, Saunders and Waade2020a) compiled a special issue on the geopolitics of Nordic drama. Saunders’ (Reference Saunders2019) comprehensive typology of depictions of international relations in television series discusses how television series are simultaneously an analytical and predictive medium. Switek (Reference Switek2021) compares elements of anti-establishment rhetoric in populist party platforms with the content of political satires. Dyson (Reference Dyson2019) examines the interplay between political television series and major theories of political science, studying how both are different ways of interpreting politics. These studies show that social scientists increasingly take television seriously as a medium worthy of study; however, there has been limited attention on how to integrate television into the political science classroom, especially in comparative politics.

Integrating television series into the political science classroom

At the same time as we have seen literature taking television’s discussion of politics seriously, political science has insufficiently considered how to incorporate television into the classroom. There are a few exceptions: Chaddha and Wilson (Reference Chaddha and Wilson2011) employ The Wire as a depiction of the systematic inequalities in urban America in teaching about urban politics. Randell-Moon and Randell (Reference Randell-Moon and Randell2020) use Parks and Recreation as part of a public management curriculum to show how the bureaucratic is also the political, while Jester (Reference Jester2021) discusses the ways that popular culture can be used to make political theory more accessible for students, drawing on films and television series. Scholars in related disciplines have more concretely dealt with the pedagogy of integrating television into the classroom. Scholars in education (Tillman and Trier Reference Tillman and Trier2007), communications (Nicolas-Gavilan et al. Reference Nicolas-Gavilan, Ortega-Barba and Galbán-Lozano2017), management (Hunt Reference Hunt2001), business (Lopez et al. Reference Lopez, Pletcher and Williams2017), organisational behaviour (DelCampo et al. Reference DelCampo, Rogers and Van Buren, III2010), sociology (Scanlan and Feinberg Reference Scanlan and Feinberg2000), and public administration (Considine Reference Considine2006; Wegrich 2015; Borry Reference Borry2018) have considered particular television series as pedagogical tools.

Comparative politics pedagogy, which might especially benefit from accurate depictions of politics in both drama and satire, has not substantially theorised how to incorporate television series into the classroom. However, we can draw on literature from international relations pedagogy for some guidance. Engert and Spencer (Reference Engert and Spencer2009) outline four ways of teaching international relations using popular culture: historical depiction, issue depiction, cultural narratives, and allegories to explain theory. Within this fourth allegorical frame, several scholars have examined popular film series, and to a lesser extent, television series as a means of accessibly introducing students to international relations concepts. Dreyer (Reference Dreyer2016) discusses use of the Hunger Games films to illustrate how states might cooperate or engage in conflict in situations of anarchy. Young et al. (Reference Young, Carranza Ko and Perrin2018) use Game of Thrones as a basis for a classroom simulation to teach major subfield concepts. Dyson (Reference Dyson2015) also reflects on his use of Game of Thrones as an entry point to teach international relations in cross-cultural settings. These examples, however, largely rely on popular culture as allegory, as opposed to a more realistic depiction of contemporary or historical political events. We seek to provide some broad guidelines for integration of these series with more realistic settings while also providing some reflections and guidelines that are more broadly applicable for the integration of television into a curriculum.

Following Baym’s analysis, we consider complex television series, which blend accurate depictions of real-world phenomena with fictional narratives, as “televisual public affairs narratives” (Reference Baym2017: 17). These series play an important role in orienting viewers to important social and political realities. Moreover, political series also invite viewers to consider the intersection of government and the lives of ordinary citizens (Tryon Reference Tryon2016: 137–164). As students often find video clips a valuable part of classroom instruction (Berk Reference Berk2009, among others), these more complex television series, already designed to introduce viewers to multilayered political phenomena, provide ideal entry points to reinforce concepts and historical examples in the classroom. In their end of semester evaluations, students have stated that they find these series to be beneficial and that they help make material more accessible.

There are some crucial differences between feature length films and serialised storytelling spanning multiple episodes and multiple seasons. Chaddha and Wilson (2010), who used The Wire for a course on urban politics, noticed that the storylines drew students into academic research. With the freedom of artistic expression, TV series “… can weave together the range of forces that shape the lives of the urban poor” (Chaddha and Wilson 2010). The series format allows the presentation of complex processes without sacrificing nuance or resorting to oversimplification. The Wire forces us to confront social realities more effectively than other media productions.

In a similar vein, television series set in the political system of a European country or with a politician as its main protagonist are able to play a role in educating students about political institutions and processes as well as societal conditions in these countries. However, the basic challenge of a comparative politics course is to combine knowledge about individual countries with more general concepts (Immerfall Reference Immerfall1999). A comparative approach typically employs general concepts to probe similarities and differences and creates groups of states that exhibit similar characteristics (Magone Reference Magone2015). Examining popular comparative politics or European politics textbooks suggests several common central topics (Caramani Reference Caramani2020; Magone Reference Magone2015): parliamentarism, public administration, judicial power, local politics, political parties, elections, and interest groups. Additionally, specific to European politics is the question of how national states are integrated into the framework of the European Union and shaped by Europeanisation. We outline relevant TV series with this perspective in mind.

Techniques to incorporate TV series into the comparative politics classroom

We see three primary ways that television series can be integrated into the classroom. First, the instructor can show selected clips from several series throughout a semester. Second, the instructor could spend a class period screening a specific episode of an individual series. And third, the instructor might use one series over the course of the semester, either assigning the series as a text, or referring back to the same series for several in-class examples, allowing students to benefit from their understanding of the story and characters with less scaffolding from the instructor prior to each clip. To illustrate how television can be incorporated into political science classrooms, we discuss each method as a pedagogical tool and provide representative examples of series that can illustrate general concepts in the context of an introductory European politics course. We also describe the Danish series Borgen in more depth. Given its range of topics and parliamentary setting, it provides clear opportunities to incorporate one or several episodes into a syllabus (Baym Reference Baym2017; Nitsch et al. Reference Nitsch, Jandura and Bienhaus2019). Further suggestions for relevant series can be found in Table 1.

Table 1

TV series focusing on European politics

Four Stars: The authors have used this series in a course already

Three Stars: The authors see clear uses for this series in many courses

Two Stars: The authors see possible uses for this series in some courses

One Star: The series is thematically relevant but may only be useful in specialised settings

*Series are listed by their originallanguage titles. If the series is marketed under a different English-language title, that title is included parenthetically

While we offer some guidance on pertinent episodes and series in the remainder of the article, in all cases it is important that instructors carefully view the specific clips, episodes, or series prior to class. This will ensure that the instructor both can plan the best way of relating the video to their course and style of teaching and can confirm that the excerpt or episode is considered appropriate for the rules and norms of their particular institution. For all methods of inclusion, the role of the instructor will be to facilitate what Parsemain (Reference Parsemain2016) terms as “critical involvement”, where students both engage with their outside knowledge about real world politics and analytical concepts while suspending disbelief and accepting the authenticity of the fictional depiction of politics on screen.

In the following section, we provide some practical advice for these three techniques of integrating television series into the political science classroom. Some considerations, however, are applicable across all three techniques. For example, if teaching online there are two particular considerations to keep in mind. First, streaming videos in synchronous online environments are often somewhat visually choppy, even if the audio keeps up. As such, showing subtitled clips is trickier online, as skips in the video may make it difficult for students to follow the scene. Second, some streaming services (such as Netflix) use technology that prevents their video from being shared via platforms like Zoom. Instructors should test sharing video clips from their desired platform beforehand to ensure that they are visible to students. Clips from TV series that can be found on YouTube or from DVDs should be workable in online environments. For in-person instruction, these concerns are minimised.

Series as text

Integrating a complete series into a course as text requires significant planning on the part of the instructor. For short-run series or miniseries, this could be done as a homework assignment for class discussion or a written assignment. For longer-run shows, the course would fundamentally need to be designed around the series itself (see Chaddha and Wilson 2010). Instructors would need to deeply understand the series to find ways to relate it to the majority of the concepts that they want to teach in the course. They might need to make tradeoffs, either minimising or excluding topics they might otherwise want to cover that might not fit in a course based on a television series as a primary text. To ensure that students follow the material and connect to relevant concepts, instructors should prepare a character guide so students understand the relations and interactions.

Given these requirements, instructors must carefully consider if a particular series is worth this degree of emphasis, in the particular context of their learning objectives for the course. We believe there are series that one can indeed devise a political science course around, but this number is likely to be fairly limited, and the decision should not be taken lightly. Wilson and Chaddha’s (2010) discussion of The Wire as a primary text is one informative way to consider this question. Their course focused on urban inequality, an issue that The Wire approaches extensively through a variety of themes, characters, and plotlines. However, even a critically acclaimed show about a relevant topic may not offer sufficient range to design a course around. An in-between measure, which we advocate for in our example, uses several episodes of the same series according to topical fit but does not assign the entire series as a text.Footnote ² This allows students to gain some advantages of watching a whole series (building understanding of characters and their relationships over time) without requiring that every episode fit neatly within the pedagogical goals of a broader course.

In the context of an introductory European politics course, Borgen, a Danish parliamentary drama that originally aired on the national public channel DR1 from 2010 to 2013, is the series that best lends itself to use throughout the semester. A revived fourth season, co-produced by Netflix and DR, aired in Spring 2022. The authors use Borgen in teaching, and our subsequent discussion depicts our thinking about how we would extend this use over the course of a term. Borgen follows Birgitte Nyborg, the leader of a centrist party heading into a national election who emerges from coalition negotiations as Denmark’s first female prime minister. While Borgen is fictional, “it represent[s] very real institutions, processes, and histories” (Baym Reference Baym2017: 19). Borgen’s compelling-yet-accurate representation of Danish politics and society is an intentional part of DR1’s public service mandate as a public broadcaster (Chow et al. Reference Chow, Waade and Saunders2020b). Over the course of the series, Borgen deals with the intricacies of parliamentary democracy, explores the role of the media in politics, and examines double standards for women. While some stories stretch across multiple episodes, many topics are covered in an episode-of-the-week format convenient for highlighting concepts in the classroom. The fourth season deals with many important themes in political science (great power relations, coalition dynamics, decolonisation, climate change), but it is more serialised in nature. This makes it somewhat less well-suited for classroom usage, though certain clips could still be useful.

While Borgen covers a wide range of topics (see Table 2 below), as Dyson notes, at its core it is about the politics of compromise inherent in any functioning parliamentary democracy (Reference Dyson2019: 59–71). Political issues are contextualised inside of parliamentary debates, where coalitional dynamics, media coverage, and civil society dictate what outcomes are truly possible. This is especially valuable for teaching European (or comparative) politics to U.S.-based students, as the inherent logics behind politics and policymaking in parliamentary systems fundamentally differ from presidential systems. By viewing many substantive issues through this lens, this systemic difference is continually reinforced over the semester.

Table 2

Relevant pedagogical themes in Borgen

Example 1: logics of multi-party systems and coalition formation

Courses on European politics typically include a section about elections. The dominant electoral system in Europe is proportional representation, which in turn tends to lead to multi-party systems. The presence of multiple groups in a parliament implies the emergence of coalition politics, where political parties negotiate to build a majority (Müller and Strøm Reference Müller and Strøm2003). The first two episodes of Borgen, focusing on a national election and subsequent negotiations, provide rich examples of parliamentary institutions in action. Moreover, they serve as a clear introduction to the characters and storylines in the show, making it easier to refer to episodes later on in the semester. Season 1, Episode 2 in particular extensively examines coalition formation (“Tæl til 90” 2010). First, the story introduces students to the characteristics of multi-party systems, as the fictional party system in Borgen encompasses the party families usually present in European party systems. For instance, instructors can use the Borgen party system to illustrate Lipset and Rokkan’s (Reference Lipset and Rokkan1967) cleavage model that explains the current structure of party competition based on historical societal conflicts. Parties’ policy positions are the foundation for talks about forming a government where parties gauge their differences and similarities (Martin and Stevenson Reference Martin and Stevenson2001). Students could be asked to note examples of policy differences that appear in the episode and tie them back to the placement of the parties in a two-dimensional policy space discussed beforehand. Students learn how policy distances connote possibilities for parties to cooperate.

Borgen can also help to illustrate the arithmetic of coalition formation, including differences between minimal-winning and oversize coalitions. Borgen’s Wikipedia entry contains a figure with the fictional seat distribution that functions as the base for coalition talks. One student exercise would be to discuss the different numerical models from coalition theory and predict the most likely outcome (with and without taking policy issues into account). After watching the episode, instructors can further teach students about situational issues that affect government formation in a less obvious way (e.g., incumbency, leadership change).

The authors have also used the initial episodes of Borgen in the classroom to help educate students about the strategic elements of coalition formation before students participated in an active learning exercise. In this exercise, groups of students were assigned roles as members of a political party in a given European country. They researched that party’s goals and positions before being given a simulated election result. Students then used the seat distribution from this election result to negotiate to form a government, including ministerial portfolios and basic compromises for a joint manifesto. Borgen provides a useful shorthand and helps students quickly understand the different strategies that might be available to them as they try to accomplish their parties’ goals.

Example 2: role of gender in politics

Borgen also offers a detailed study of the role of gender in politics and political communication, and it is well suited for examining the biases that women in politics face. Boaz (Reference Boaz2020), in her discussion of the pedagogical value of fiction in teaching gender and international politics, notes the ways that fictional series can powerfully illustrate biases as well as enable classroom discussion of issues pertaining to gender. Discussion of the implicit and explicit biases that Nyborg faces is crucial throughout the series and is present from the first episode, in which there is considerable discussion about what she can wear to a pre-election debate (see Bell and Sinclair Reference Bell and Sinclair2016 for more thorough discussion). Within the Borgen universe, the media also frequently comments on Nyborg’s struggles to balance family and the Prime Ministership and does so through an inherently gendered lens (Hallsworth Reference Hallsworth2021: 131–162). To that end, nearly any episode of the series could be used to inform a discussion about gender and politics. However, two in particular could be selected. In Episode 5 of the first season (“Mænd der elsker kvinder” 2010), there is an explicit discussion around gender quotas, one of the most common institutions designed to increase the involvement of women in politics. Another option could be the finale of Borgen’s second season (“En bemærkning af særlig karakter” 2011), which strays from the series’ typical issue-of-the-week format and has a clearer reflection on, and discussion of, being a woman in politics. This could be paired with a discussion of an academic text, like Aaldering and van der Pas’ (Reference Aaldering and Van Der Pas2020) analysis of the gender-differentiated media depictions of leadership styles of Dutch politicians. Borgen is especially well suited to discussion of gender and politics, because it has a combination of both explicit and implicit discussions of gender—both within the fictional context of the series itself and as a representation to the audience in our own reality—which allows instructors considerable flexibility in picking the optimal entry point for their classroom.

A full range of substantive topics that might be appropriate for an introductory European politics course is shown in Table 2 below, with reference to specific episodes.Footnote ³ We do not suggest that instructors cover all of these; instead, we offer this table as shorthand for instructors seeking to cover specific topics in the course of their semester using a single series to keep students engaged in both material and a single dramatic narrative.

If time in class is not available for screening an entire episode, another option could be to assign students to watch particular episodes out of class and to write short reflections. If episodes are assigned to be watched outside of class, it is important for instructors to remember that not all students have access to Netflix, the current streaming location for Borgen in most countries. Instructors should ensure that students have access to the materials by either working with their university library to make the DVDs available for short-term loan and/or by hosting an on-campus classroom screening of the episode(s) outside of normal class hours.