ACQUISITION OF SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR PROVIDING ADVISORY SERVICES TO LEADERS AND INSTITUTIONS The student will have a clearly defined perspective on a particular career path increasingly in demand both by Political Science students and in the labour market. The student will acquire knowledge and highly practical teachings on the tasks of political consultancy and advice for the different political organisations and scenarios. This will lay the foundations for the relationship between communications and politics. Students will develop skills related to political communications and political marketing, handling conceptual political science tools: structure and meaning of political messages, relations between the political parties, institutions and candidates and the media, leadership analysis, campaign design, identification of voter types and interpretation of election results, among other things. Students will be taught to manage, organise and structure useful sources of documentation for the exercise of their tasks. They will learn to prepare and structure political reports, to design and analyse political strategies and political campaign speeches, institutional statements, parliamentary speeches, etc.

Students will acquire theoretical knowledge and practical skills related to the tasks of political consulting in various political organizations and scenarios. They will establish the key issues of the relationship between communication and politics. The course will provide skills related to political communication and marketing, employing the tools from Political Science: structure and significance of political messages, relationships of parties, institutions, and candidates with the media, leadership analysis, design of electoral campaigns, identification of types of electorate, and interpretation of electoral results, among others. 1. Political consulting as professional field 2. Evolution of political communication and the role of the consultant. 3. Political communication in diverse, complex, and dynamic societies. 4. Political marketing and media relations. 5. Analysis of messages and development of political discourse. 6. Electoral campaigns: research, strategy, communication plan... 7. Public affairs consulting.

The course will consist of lectures and lab classes, although the course will have thoroughly practical content. The course lectures will provide the student with the conceptual and theoretical tools necessary for understanding and performing case studies. The theoretical classes will explain the functioning of political agents and institutions, the performance of advisory work for each and the analysis of the context. All theoretical presentations will be supplemented with practical examples drawn from the analysis of the publications of the media, institutions, websites of political parties and from the political reality. The practical classes include the analysis and interpretation of political speeches on the different organisational and institutional levels, analysis of opinion polls, election results and political reports. Apart from analysing and interpreting specific cases, students will develop their own speeches and reports in various situations posed by the professor. They will also handle press reports and build their own archive with the information needed to plan an election campaign.