This guest post is by Francesco Navarrini, who teaches Introduction to Political Science and European Union Negotiation at the bachelor’s level in European Studies at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. He also lectures on Professional Skills in the Master’s program for European Studies at the same university and at the LLM in Global Food Law program at the University of Parma. Additionally, he is a tutor and project supervisor for the Master’s program in Technology and Public Policy at the International Labour Organization’s Training Centre in Turin, Italy. His research interests focus on the intersection of technology and political science, particularly how Generative Intelligence influences the way users retrieve political information and how this, in turn, may inform their political decisions. Francesco has completed GPTZero’s course on Teaching Responsibly with AI. If you would like to reach out to Francesco, you can find him on his LinkedIn page.
I love using literature to explore political science and explain concepts that might otherwise seem too technical or abstract. For example, last week we discussed cleavages (social divisions), and I introduced Rokkan’s classic theory: how cleavages form, how they become entrenched, and how parties historically exploit them by asking voters to align along overlapping divisions.
We arrived at this topic after an exercise on electoral systems, where I asked the class to split into groups and analyze the pros and cons of different systems. We imagined a country called Pluravia, marked by multiple social fractures (class, ethnic, religious, and so on), where an electoral reform was ongoing. Students were divided into groups and each one should advocate for a different electoral system (proportional, plurality or majority) as the best for this situation. Since many students found the historical explanation of cleavage formation too theoretical, I decided to design an active learning exercise to help them see, in practice, how politicians exploit cleavages to sway voters in their favor, and how this later intersects with sincere or strategic voting, a key lesson from studying electoral systems.
I drew inspiration from Hugh Howey’s Silo trilogy (and the series on Apple TV) to create this exercise. After a brief five-minute introduction (explaining the Silo’s rules and its main social divisions), I divided the class of 40 into four groups of 10. Each group represented one of the Silo’s social classes: Up Top, Mid Rangers, Lower Mids, and Down Deep.
First, each group had to meet and decide on a strategy. The goal was to win the election by convincing others to vote for their representative. As I circulated among the groups, I guided their discussions on how to best exploit social cleavages to align votes in their favor. I also gave each group a secret mission: while the official aim was to elect their representative as mayor, they also had to complete a covert objective—such as securing votes from a specific class or excluding another class from alliances.
This first phase lasted about 15–20 minutes.
Next came the negotiation phase (another 15-20 minutes), where groups sent emissaries to others to request votes and negotiate terms. Each group dispatched one or two representatives to seek compromises and advance their (still secret) mission.
The third phase was a short electoral campaign (10 minutes). Each group selected a representative to deliver a two-minute speech outlining their platform and soliciting votes. After the debate, I gave the groups five minutes for internal discussion before casting their votes. The rules were: each group could assign three points to one group, two points to another and one point to the last. Groups could not vote for themselves, It was not possible not to cast points on any group, and all votes were public.
The result? A tactical stalemate. When we tallied the votes, every group ended up with the same number of points. In the closing discussion, we reflected on how social cleavages depend on the historical and contextual conditions in which they arise, and how it becomes key to identify them if we want to predict political outcomes. We also debated the difference between sincere and strategic voting, a distinction that became tangible through the exercise.
A final note: Portugal will hold local elections in October 2025 and presidential elections in January 2026. This exercise not only helped students understand social cleavages and how they influence political agendas, but also gave them practical tools to evaluate campaign speeches and debates (including secret missions) and reflect on their own voting behavior, whether driven by sincerity or strategy.