Face-to-face , second term, 30 hours of theory.

Second term
Wednesday from 17:15 to 19:15 at 119 Marais 2100

English

At the end of the course, student will have :
- been presented with a general overview of the history of the European project
- acquired a basic knowledge of the peculiar political system that is the European Union
- had informed debates regarding the long-standing issue of the democratic deficit of the European Union

For the Bachelor in Law :

For the Bachelor in Law (Evening Programme) :

For the Bachelor in History :

For the Bachelor in Information and Communication :

For the Bachelor in French and Romance Languages and Letters : General :

For the Bachelor in Modern Languages and Letters: German, Dutch and English :

For the Bachelor in Political Sciences: General :

For the Bachelor in Political Sciences: General (Evening Programme) :

For the Bachelor in Sociology and Anthropology :

For the Bachelor in Philosophy :

The lectures will proceed in three stages. To begin with, we will make the point that the political institutions constitutive of the European Union are integrated enough to be considered an actual political system. Accordingly, the European Union can be studied as such, which we will be doing for several lectures, putting the emphasis on the fact that the EU is a quite unique political system that deserves to be approached as a sui generis case. We will highlight the institutionalized relationships between its main actors and attempt to paint at great brushstrokes its inner institutional logic.

Second, we will be looking backwards in time, at the history of the European project to explain how we arrived at such an institutional outcome. We will show that the European Union was not built in a day and that many of its quirks result from hard-fought negotiation processes and compromises opposing conflicting views of the European integration project.

Eventually, we will ask ourselves how the issue of the democratic deficit of the EU, identified by European analysts since the 1970s, has been tackled since then and how its approach could decisively shape the future of EU politics.

Ex cathedra lectures and individual reading of a portfolio of scientific articles

On top of the 30 hours of theory delivered during ex cathedra lectures, a portfolio of compulsory readings will be put online at the beginning of the semester. Those articles will present the latest developments in the academic debate regarding the EU's alleged democratic deficit and bring some additional information to complement the third section of the lectures. The students will have to read the articles by themselves and to relate their arguments and content to the normative frameworks discussed during the last lectures. During the exam, one question will address the content of those articles.

The three-hours long exam is made of three questions, assessed each on 20 points. The addition of the three results will then be divided by three to obtain a consolidated result on 20 points.

The first two open-ended questions will address the theoretical content covered during the ex cathedra lectures. The student will have to analyze/criticize/comment a newspaper's article, a political speech, an official document, etc., by referring him- or herself to the concepts and analytical frameworks presented in the lectures.
The third question will cover the compulsory readings. The student will have to apply critically the theories and arguments developed in the scientific articles to make sense and comment some of the latest developments of EU's political life (introduced through some newspaper's articles). The students are allowed to bring with them the portfolio of compulsory readings at the exam. But the articles cannot have been annotated and should bear no traces of handwriting.

There is no handbook for this class. But a portfolio of Power Point slides summarizing the main theoretical points developed orally during the lectures will be available online at the beginning of the semester. Since the lectures evolve each year to reflect the EU's political evolution, the slides may be updated throughout the semester.

For the students looking for some complementary information, I recommend the following readings :

HABERMAS (Jurgen), The Crisis of the European Union. A Response, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2012.
HIX (Simon), What's Wrong with Europe and How to Fix it ?, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2008.
HIX (Simon) and HOYLAND (Bjorn), The political system of the European Union, (3rd. ed.), Palgrave MacMillan, 2011, 448 p.
MAGNETTE (Paul), What is the European Union? Nature and prospects, Palgrave MacMillan, 2005, 229 p.
VAN MIDDELAAR (Luuk), The Passage to Europe. How a Continent Became a Union, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2013.

Face-to-face, second term, 30 hours of theory. Additionally, the students will have to read by themselves a portfolio of complementary scientific articles.