Purpose
The European Union’s existence and development impacts the German political system considerably and therefore raises many empirical and theoretical questions. The objective of this class is to explain the evolution of the EU institutions, to gain a deeper theoretical and first-hand practical understanding of what the EU is and does, to investigate the relationship between the different EU institutions and its member states, and to examine how studying the EU can contribute to the study of political systems and governance structures more generally and the political system of Germany in particular. At the end of this course you will have gained an overview of the current public and scholarly social scientific and normative debates about European Union politics and a solid understanding of how EU institutions work and how to work with them in practice.
Background reading
No single book is exactly coterminous with the syllabus. But the following are useful analytical and theory-based background readings recommended for the preparation of the seminar:
Hix, S. and B. Hoyland (2011) The political system of the European Union, London: Palgrave.
Kaeding, M., J. Pollack and P. Schmidt (2018) The Future of Europe. Views from the Capitals, eds., London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Class discussion will be more interesting if we are all up-to-date on EU current events. In addition to the coverage in international and national newspapers, you might also find www.politico.eu, www.euractive.com and http://euobserver.com/ helpful. |