Lecturer: Bianca POLO DEL VECCHIO

Through this course students will develop a broad understanding of the process of European integration: its origins, its evolution, and its institutional and policy outcomes.

Students will gain the knowledge and tools to allow them to formulate opinions on matters relating to European integration, and will gain in confidence presenting and defending these positions. Students will have the opportunity to take part in class debates and in discussions within smaller groups. Students will be asked to draw and report conclusions, and to make both individual and group presentations.

The course begins with an introduction to European integration, the post-World War II geopolitical context and the key theories that have been put forward by scholars to account for the process of integration. With context and theory in mind, students will study, and seek to explain, subsequent developments in European integration from the establishment of the European Communities to the most recent Treaty reforms. Students will learn about the composition, the roles, and the functioning of the European Union’s institutions as well as the various steps of the policy-making process. Particular attention will be paid to the Single Market and Economic and Monetary Union, with students critically analyzing the success of these programmes. Students will study the EU’s programme of enlargement and consider its consequences for the EU, its member states, and (potential) candidate states. The course ends with students reflecting on Europe in crisis and asking what next for the EU and European integration.