The Department of Political Science (DSP) was founded in 1986 under the name Dipartimento di Organizzazione e Sistema Politico by a group of scholars – including Giorgio Alberti, Giuseppe Di Federico, Giorgio Freddi – affiliated to the Istituto  Politico-Amministrativo of the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Bologna. The former name reflected an interest and a commitment of the founding members to the comparative study of  organizations and political institutions, at a time when such organizational  perspective was not popular in the Italian academic community.

Now the DSP is the largest Department of Political Science in Italy, comprising more than 20% of the political scientists working in Italian Universities. In 2003 the research activity of the department obtained  a very positive evaluation by an international committee of referees.
The Department has particular strengths in three research areas. The first covers the subfields of Public Administration, Organization Theory and Public Policy Analysis. The second covers the subfield of Comparative Politics, with an emphasis on political institutions, political parties, elections and electoral systems, legislative politics, legislative-executive relations. Finally, the third covers the subfield of Comparative Judicial Systems, with an emphasis on the relationships between judicial systems and representative institutions. The department is also strong in the areas of EU politics and policies, federalism and local government. The editorial board of the journal Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, founded in 2001 and directed by Giorgio Freddi,  includes several members of the Department. Details of recent publications by members of staff can be found on the members’ webpages.
The Department is equipped with a specialized research library and a computer lab.
The Department offers a PhD program at the graduate level in collaboration with a number of of Italian Universities (Universities of Bologna, Firenze, Genova, Napoli, Padova, Pisa, Trieste).

The Department developed exchanges with important Universities in several countries, such as the University of Oxford; Universiteit Leiden; the Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn; the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva; the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, the Univerzita Karlova V Praze and the Universidad Complutense, Madrid. Recently the Department obtained funds from the Italian Ministry of Education for a three years (2006-2008) research program – coordinated by Giorgio Freddi -  aimed at developing linkages with academic institutions abroad and, in so doing, improving the quality of Italian scientific research. Participant units based at the University of California include the  Center for the Study of Democracy, UC Irvine, the Center for the Study of American Politics and Public Policy, UCLA and the Institute for Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley. The major themes to be explored within this project are synthesized in its official title. “New Forms of Democracy? Change and Reform in Democratic Institutions”.