The course addresses the most important internal and external challenges that the EU is currently facing, and discusses the political and institutional difficulties that limit its action.
The list of required readings will be uploaded on Moodle along with the course syllabus. Please contact professor Fargion for the password
Obiettivi Formativi
The general aim of the course is to provide students with a critical understanding of current EU politics and policy making. By the end of the course students should be able to appreciate what is at stake in the most important internal and external EU policies and what are the main factors influencing the relevant decision making process.
Prerequisiti
Basic knowledge of: a) the history of European integration; b) the main EU institutions with particular reference to their role and functions.
Metodi Didattici
Classes will integrate lecture and discussion, and it is crucial that students keep up with the readings and be prepared to discuss them in class. Regular attendance and participation in discussion are strongly encouraged. In addition, students will have to do a short presentation on the current agenda of EU institutions, and a written essay ( roughly 3,000 words) on a policy issue of their choice.
Altre Informazioni
Additional seminars with visiting professors are included in the teaching
programme
Students with special needs are kindly required to contact the professor.
Modalità di verifica apprendimento
The presentation in class and the paper will account for 25 percent of the final grade. The final exam consists of four short written essays on topics covered by the course. Students will have three and a half hours to complete the exam. Required readings will be reduced by 10 percent for students that have attended more than 75 percent of the classes. A further 20 percent reduction is envisaged for students participating in the EU Simulation with James Madison University.
Programma del corso
The initial part of the course addresses the variety of challenges that the EU will have to face over the next decades, and then goes on to discuss the political and institutional difficulties that currently limit its action. Within this context, special attention will be paid to: a)the internal dynamics that characterize the functioning of its main institutions (Commission, European Parliament, and Council); b) the complexity of inter-institutional relations; c) the interaction between the national and the supra-national levels of government.
By looking into a selection of contentious issues related to both internal and external EU policies, in the second and third parts of the course, the focus will shift from politics strictu sensu to policy making and its outcomes. We shall analyse as a preliminary step the EU’s mix of regulatory, distributive and redistributive policies, and how the EU spends its budget. Amid internal policies we shall concentrate first on cohesion policy that sheds light on the diverging interests between countries that are net contributors and countries that are net beneficiaries, and second on how the European Union directly and indirectly influences national welfare states. This last topic is of crucial importance, especially following the onset of the 2007 financial and economic crisis: students will learn about the long-term evolution of EU social policy in order to better appreciate the current debate on the dramatic weakening of the social dimension in the European integration process.
The last part of the course will be devoted to external EU policies with the aim of highlighting the main factors undermining the role of the EU in the international arena. Based on a series of guest lectures, the course will provide an overview of the European Union’s approach to the most important geographical areas; however, considering EU’s strategic interests and priorities, migration policies and development cooperation with Africa will be analysed and discussed in greater detail.