In order to give you more time for preparation, here you can find all assigned course readings available for download as PDF files. 

I. Course Objectives

This course aims to familiarise students with the main institutions, policies, and actors of the European Union. The institutions dealt with are the Council, the Commission, the Parliament, the Court of Justice and the Central Bank, while the major policies covered are the Single Market, Monetary Union, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Justice and Home Affairs.

The course has two main goals. The first is to offer a basic knowledge of the main institutions to prepare students for other courses in the academic programme, and to offer an understanding of how they fit together to form a political system. The second is to consider the politics, motives and difficulties associated with Union policy-making. For that reason, the policies covered are selective and illustrative, not comprehensive.

II. Course Contents

Topic 1: Introduction

• Church, Clive H. & David Phinnemore, “Understanding the Treaty of Lisbon”, Romanian Journal of European Affairs, vol. 10, no. 2, 2010, pp. 17-21.
• General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, “Treaty of Lisbon”, information note, December 2009.
• Peterson, John & Michael Shackleton, “EU Institutions and Europe’s Politics”, Discussion Paper, Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB), November 2011.

Topic 2: The European Commission

• Peterson, John, “The College of Commissioners”, in John Peterson & Michael Shackleton (eds.), The Institutions of the European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, 2nd ed., pp. 81-103.
• Hooghe, Liesbet & Neill Nugent, “The Commission’s Services”, in Peterson & Shackleton, op. cit., pp. 147-168.

Topic 3: The Council of Ministers

• Hayes-Renshaw, Fiona, “The Council of Ministers”, in Peterson & Shackleton, op.cit., pp. 60-80.

Topic 4: The European Parliament

• Shackleton, Michael, “The European Parliament”, in Peterson & Shackleton, op.cit., pp. 104-124.

Topic 5: European Elections and Party Politics of the EU

• Lord, Christopher, “The aggregating function of Political Parties in EU decision-making”, Living Reviews in European Governance, 2010, vol. 5, no. 3.

Topic 6: The European Court of Justice

• Kennedy, Tom, “The European Court of Justice”, in Peterson & Shackleton, op.cit., pp. 125-143.

Topic 7: The European Central Bank

• McNamara, Kathleen R., “Managing the Euro: The European Central Bank”, in Peterson & Shackleton, op.cit., pp. 169-189.

Topic 8: Democracy, Identity, Legitimacy and the EU

• Lord, Christopher & Erika Harris, Democracy in the New Europe, Basingstroke, Palgrave, 2006, pp. 61-87; 124-150.

Topic 9: Decision-making I: Examples from Internal Market Policies and Economic and Monetary Union

• Young, Alasdair R., “The Single Market: Deregulation, Reregulation, and Integration”, in Helen Wallace, Mark A. Pollack & Alasdair R. Young (eds.), Policy-making in the European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, 6th ed., pp. 107-131.
• Hodson, Dermot, “Economic and Monetary Union: An Experiment in New Modes of EU Policy-Making”, in Wallace et al., op. cit., pp. 157-180.

Topic 10: Decision-making II: Examples from Common Foreign and Security Policy, and in Justice and Home Affairs

• Giegerich, Bastian & William Wallace, “Foreign and Security Policy: Civilian Power Europe and American Leadership”, in Wallace et al., op. cit., pp. 431-455.
• Lavanex, Sandra, “Justice and Home Affairs: Communitarization with Hesitation?”, in Wallace et al., op. cit., pp. 457-477.