The European Union Today: People, Policy, Politics

POLI 490.001

The following information is for the Spring 2018 section of EU Today. The Spring 2018 syllabus is available in PDF format, as are the Spring 2017 syllabus and the Spring 2016 syllabus.

Instructors:
Anna Hokema (anna.hokema@uni-bremen.de)
Holger Moroff (moroff@email.unc.edu)

Instructor of record:
John Stephens (jdsteph@unc.edu)

I. COURSE DESCRIPTION

Part one and four of this course introduces students to theoretical approaches to both International Relations and the European Union. The EU enjoys more powers than an international organization and less than a nation state. However, these powers vary according to the degree of integration in different policy fields. How have political scientists conceptualized European integration? How have they explained the development of supranational institutions and decision making in external relations? There are few areas of agreement on these questions, and we shall have the opportunity to compare and contrast the answers that political scientists have provided. We shall look at the institutional set up of the EU and its external relations.

Part two and three of this course looks at solidarity and integration. From a European perspective, social policy and welfare states more generally are instrumental for integration as well as for the creation of social cohesion and individual welfare in societies. We look at the ways the EU influences social policy in its member states and explore the differences and similarities of European welfare states. Solidarity and integration were for a long time important topics in the debate on the creation and enlargement of the European Union. The integration of new countries but also of people across the continent were heatedly debated. During the last decade, discourses of disintegration became apparent on various levels. However, these antagonistic processes seem to happen simultaneously across the EU. The third part of the course will look at Brexit (the UK preparing to leave the EU) and migration inside but also from the outside into the EU to understand current European debates around integration and disintegration.

II. ASSIGNMENTS

1) Participation in class discussion and presentations (40%).
Presentation and mini presentation (20%): In part II and III students are asked to do a group presentation (2-3 students) of 20 minutes and an individual (not graded) mini presentation of max. 5 minutes. Students will sign up for the presentations and mini presentation in the first session of part II (2/16/18). The group presentation will be based on academic literature and the mini presentation is supposed to be on a newspaper article dealing with current social policy issue (such as a labour market or pension reform proposal in European country).

For the first and fourth part students will sign up for another individual presentation (20%) during our first session on 1/22/18. The presentations are based on our class reading and should be no longer than 20 minutes. You might want to circulate copies of a handout on your topic (one page max.) at the beginning of class. Everyone should also prepare one typewritten paragraph (about 10 lines, including one question) on what you found most interesting, astonishing or questionable about the required reading for each class.

Students will each do: one group presentation, one individual presentation (short), one individual presentation (long).

2) A research paper (60%) on a topic related to the course. Please come and talk to us about your topic. The paper should be article-length (about 4,000 words) and involve some original aspects of inquiry and reasoning. Please use the APA parenthetical (in-text) citation style. The final version is due April 30st (please use Sakai’s digital drop box).

III. COURSE SCHEDULE

IV. BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Required:

John McCormick, Understanding the European Union, 7th edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

The following articles and book chapters can be accessed through UNC library or will be made available on Sakai:

Alcock, Pete (2016): Why we need welfare. Collective action for the common good. Bristol: Policy Press.

Arts, W.A. & Gelissen, J. (2010): Models of the welfare state. In: F.G. Castles, S. Leibfried, J. Lewis, H. Obinger & Pierson, C., The Oxford handbook of the Welfare state (pp. 569-587). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Becker, S., Fetzer, T. & Novy, D (2017): Who voted for Brexit? A comprehensive district-level analysis. Center for Economic Policy Discussion Paper 11954

Bonoli, G. (2003): Two Worlds of Pension Reform in Western Europe. Comparative Politics, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Jul., 2003), pp. 399-416.

Castles, F.G. (2010): The English-speaking countries. In: F.G. Castles, S. Leibfried, J. Lewis, H. Obinger, & Pierson, C., The Oxford handbook of the Welfare state (pp. 630-643). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cini, M. & Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, N. (2016): Brexit. The background, the vote, and the impact. In: M. Cini & N. Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, European Union politics (Supplement 1-19). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Falkner, Gerda (2016): The European Union’s social dimension. In: M. Cini & N. Pérez-Solórzano Borragán, European Union politics (pp. 269-280). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ferrera, M. (2010). The South European countries. In: F.G. Castles, S. Leibfried, J. Lewis, H. Obinger, & Pierson, C., The Oxford handbook of the Welfare state (pp. 616-629). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hacker, B., Treeck van, T. (2010). What influence for European governance? The Reformed Stability and Growth Pact, the Europe 2020 Strategy and the “European Semester”. Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

Heidenreich, M., Rice, D., Zimmermann, K. (2015): The Europeanisation of Social Integration in the Eurozone Crisis: A Conceptual Framework. Working Paper Series Oldenburger Studien zur Europäisierung und zur transnationalen Regulierung No. 24/2015. Oldenburg: Universität Oldenburg.

Kautto, M. (2010): The Nordic countries. In: F.G. Castles, S. Leibfried, J. Lewis, H. Obinger, & Pierson, C., The Oxford handbook of the Welfare state (pp. 586-600). Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press.

Korpi, W., Ferrarini, T., Englund, S. (2013): Women’s opportunities under different family pol-icy constellations: gender, class, and inequality tradeoffs in Western countries re-examined. Social Politics 2013 Volume 20 Number 1, pp. 1-40.

Ní Léime, Á & Street, D. (2016): Gender and age implications of extended working life policies in the US and Ireland. Critical Social Policy 1-20.

Nullmeier, F. & Kaufmann, F.-X. (2010): Post-war welfare state development. In: F.G. Castles, S. Leibfried, J. Lewis, H. Obinger, & Pierson, C., The Oxford handbook of the Welfare state (pp. 81-104). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Palier, B. (2010): Continental Western Europe. In: F.G. Castles, S. Leibfried, J. Lewis, H. Obinger, & Pierson, C., The Oxford handbook of the Welfare state (pp. 600-615). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

V. GRADING

Letter grades will be assigned using the following scale:

IV. HONOR CODE

Remember that as a student of UNC-Chapel Hill, you are bound by the University’s Honor Code, which states that “It shall be the responsibility of every student at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to obey and support the enforcement of the Honor Code, which prohibits lying, cheating, or stealing when these actions involve academic processes or University students or academic personnel acting in an official capacity.”

All graded academic work must include a pledge comprised of the following: “No unauthorized assistance has been received or given in the completion of this work.”

An especially serious Honor Code violation is plagiarism. If you are uncertain about what constitutes plagiarism, contact me and/or familiarize yourself with this plagiarism tutorial, courtesy of UNC Libraries.

Attendance policy:

Attendance is pivotal for the individual and collective success of this seminar. While one absence will not affect your grade, you should try to make it whenever you can.