SCHIMMELFENNIG Frank - Differentiated European Integration: Patterns, Causes and Institutional Design (25h)
Professor Frank Schimmelfennig
Academic Assistant Sara Maria BARBAGLIA
Differentiation is a core constitutional feature of European integration. Not all member states participate (equally) in the integrated policies of the EU; at the same time, non-member states participate in some EU policies. The EU has used differentiated integration to cope with the increasing heterogeneity of member state preferences and capacities in an expanding Union. Differentiation is also discussed as a strategy to overcome paralysis and integration dilemmas as the EU prepares to respond to current challenges such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, further EU enlargement, the geopoliticization of the global economy, and the nationalist and populist challenges to liberal democracy and European integration.
This optional course provides an in-depth and up-to-date conceptual and practical overview of research on differentiated integration. It presents conceptual and theoretical approaches to the study of differentiated integration; and it describes and explains the development of differentiated integration in Europe. The course further examines the politics of differentiated integration from public opinion to intergovernmental bargaining. It looks into specific contexts of differentiated integration such as the internal differentiation of core state power integration, transitional differentiation in the context of enlargement, and external differentiation in the EU’s relations with non-member states.
In sum, the optional course has the objective to provide students with a comprehensive theoretical and empirical understanding of differentiated integration. It aims to equip students with the knowledge and tools to assess the opportunities and benefits, as well as the problems and limits, of differentiation as a strategy for the institutional design of integration.