Suchen nach Veranstaltungen - Einzelansicht

The seminar will take place in a compact format, Tuesdays from 10-14h: 15.10., 22.10., 29.10., 19.11., 26.11. (R&P workshop), 10.12., 14.1.20, 16.1.20 ("NRW debattiert Europa 5.0" 12-18h)!

Assessment

1. Weekly press digest and active participation (15% of the final grade): The weekly press digest should take max. 5 minutes covering high-quality German and foreign sources of information. It should be directly linked to the topic of the session. Students may choose between a variety of presentation techniques: PPT-presentation, short films, “Frühstücksfernsehn”, “Anne Will talk” etc.

1. Outline of reform proposals and presentation (15 % of final grade) of max. 5 minutes summarising the ideas of how to reform the European institutions or EU governance aspects covered in the particular session. Students shall distribute a written handout listing all reform proposals (including respective references).

1. Literature review (70% of the final grade): The review must have a maximum of 1500 words (including everything except for cover page). The student chooses a particular topic from the recommended reading of the course outline to be agreed during the course of the semester with Prof. Kaeding. The written assignment should be written in an academic style and be balanced identifying research gaps in a particular field of research. Its cover page should include the student´s full name, student id and the word count. It is due preferably during the last session of the course and at the latest 31 March 2020 (electronic word version must be submitted to the academic assistant by email without putting me in cc: zeki.demirpolat@uni-due.de).

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.

Mündliche oder schriftliche Leistung