EU488      Half Unit
European Policy-Making and International Cooperation

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

This course is an introduction to the causes and nature of regional integration in Europe and the EU’s governance system. The topic is presented from a historical, social scientific, and normative perspective. We critically examine various theories and current debates about the European Union by studying the process of regional integration through different decades and crises, its effects on its members and third states, and its constitutional character.

The first part of this course analyses different stages in the integration process and asks under what conditions states have delegated (or not) authority to EU institutions and other regional integration bodies. The second part discusses a number of big public policy questions that this transfer of authority raises. What are the consequences of the single market and currency on national institutions? What is their impact on other markets and currencies? How does the EU enforce its laws, and how does its legal system compare with the legalisation of world politics? What is the EU’s role and power in world politics? As the EU navigates an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape, it faces challenges such as shifting transatlantic relations, strategic competition with China, war on its borders, and the need for a more coherent security and defense policy.

We conclude by reflecting on current and future challenges to the EU, notably questions of its legitimacy, democratic quality, and the populist challenge. At the end of this course, students will have gained an overview of the process of European integration, political science theories of regional integration, the EU’s governance system as a political order beyond the nation-state, as well as public and scholarly debates about the reality and ideal of European regional integration.

15 hours of seminars and 10 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.
1.5 hours of seminars in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

A review session will be held at the start of the Spring Term to prepare for the e-exam.

Presentation

Essay (1200 words)

• Haas, Ernst B. 1961. International Integration. The European and the Universal Process. International Organization 15:3
• Moravcsik, A. (1998). The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht. Cornell University Press.
• Hobolt, S. (2016). The Brexit Vote: A Divided Nation, A Divided Continent. In Journal of European Public Policy, 23(9), pp. 1259-1277.
• De Vries, C. (2018). Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration. Oxford: OUP.
• Kleine, Mareike and Mark Pollack (2018). Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Its Critics. In Journal of Common Market Studies 56(7), pp. 1493-1509.

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period

The summative assessment will take the form of an e-exam in the Spring Term. E-exams are assessments run under invigilated exam conditions on campus. Students will complete the assessment using software downloaded to their personal laptops.