Course content and objectives
The process of European integration can be understood as the transfer of sovereignty from the Member States to the European Union (EU). This process entails the delegation of tasks to supranational institutions, e.g. the European Commission, and the pooling of Member States’ sovereignty in the Council. The transfer of sovereignty has been most extensive in economic policies, the internal market and the monetary union, thus ‘low politics’, whereas Member States remain in control of ‘high politics’, thus foreign, security and defence policy. At the same time, the integration of ‘high politics’ can be traced back to the 1970s when the Member States started to coordinate their foreign policies. Due to the challenges of internationalisation and globalisation, the need for coordination has only increased and, accordingly, the Treaty changes since the 1990s have led to the creation of a common foreign and security policy and, thus, an ever stronger role for the EU in terms of ‘high politics’. In this course, we explore the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) of the EU in light of these challenges.
Learning objectives
The main learning objective is the analysis and the critical discussion of the CFSP. To this end, we will discuss
- The historical, legal and geographical foundations of the CFSP
- The evolution of the institutional framework
- Theories to explain various aspects of integration and the conduct of CFSP policies
- The actual content of the CFSP, i.e. policies at the core of ‘high politics’: border controls, crisis management, intelligence cooperation and defence
The second objective is to practice skills essential for social science research.
- Searching for and reviewing academic literature
- Developing research designs based on sound methodology
- Presenting and discussing research designs and work in progress (peer review)
Regionalmodul Politics in the European Union
This seminar extends on the lecture ‘Politics in the EU’ and the seminar ‘Normative Power Europe’ (both held in the summer term). In the lecture, students were introduced to the political system of the EU and the conceptual challenges of analysing EU governance; in the seminar, students were introduced to the concept of normative power to analyse the external relations of the EU from the perspective of value promotion as regards, among others, enlargement, trade, neighbourhood policy and development. In this seminar, we build on the foundations laid in the lecture and the seminar and extend the analysis to the ‘high politics’ of EU external relations. Although external relations, broadly defined, include, arguably, all policy areas in which the EU has competences to act and/or support Member States (e.g. trade, environment policy or energy), the key issues of foreign policy, narrowly defined, are security and defence. Since these issues are the core of national sovereignty, the integration of ‘high politics’ presents a formidable puzzle for studying EU policy making, between functional needs of coordination/integration and the innate preference of Member States to remain sovereign and to preserve statehood.
Teaching methods
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!
Due to the current situation, the course will be provided fully online!
The learning objectives and the teaching methods employed for the course as designed originally remain (more or less) the same regardless of the current situation, but the online implementation of these methods, obviously, affects interaction and (online) discussion.
In general, two types of methods are employed: interaction and discussion online (synchronous learning) as well as self-study and assignments (asynchronous learning). In line with the course requirements, asynchronous learning through the completion of assignment questions will be an important method while, at the same time, synchronous learning will be an important part of the course as well since there will be regular online sessions throughout the semester.
The methods in these sessions will be:
- Presentations by the course coordinator
- Hands-on practicing of research skills
- Participation of students in online discussion (e.g. answering assignment questions, moderating group discussions, presenting research designs)
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