Kursinformation

This lecture (held in English) provides an introduction to the political system and the policy-making processes of the European Union. It is designed to make students acquainted with the EU’s institutional set-up and its legislative processes, including its constitutional development and democratic quality. It also scrutinizes important theoretical tools for analyzing European Union politics, as developed in International Relations (Neofunctionalism, Liberal Intergovernmentalism) and Comparative Politics (e.g. Principal Agent Models, the EU as a political system and regulatory state). Central questions cover the forces that drive European integration, and its limits; key actors, preferences and institutions in the EU policy making processes. A major theme is the development of the internal market and monetary integration as well as the ongoing crisis of European integration. Furthermore, the lecture introduces students to major data sources in the study of the European Union. After attending the lecture, students have a solid knowledge of the structure and the workings of the EU institutions, of the political science approaches to the study of the EU institutions, the debates on the pros and cons of European integration, as well as of important data sources on the EU.