European Politics and Simulation (PO32007)
Module Convenors: Dr Christian Kaunert and Dr Sarah Léonard
Credit Rating: 30 SCQF credits
Level: Level 3 optional module (core module for European Politics degree pathway)
Module Content
This course provides an overview of the key historical junctures in the integration process, including the polemical path to the Lisbon treaty, and the basic institutional structure of the EU. It then examines key policy areas including the single market, economic and monetary union, agriculture, justice and home affairs and foreign and security policies. A number of key issues are also examined, including Europeanization and enlargement, EU relations with Turkey and Cyprus, the EU’s so-called ‘democratic deficit’ and Euroscepticism.
Seminars/workshops will be organised by assigning students within national, EU institutional and other teams. These teams will then be provided with supporting briefing material, reading lists and an overall scenario. Their task will then be, over the course of the module, to act within their roles in simulated EU negotiations and decision making. Throughout the course of the module the scenario will evolve both as a result of the students’ own progress in negotiation but also as a result of ’external’ events inserted by the module convenor. In a final one-day ‘summit’ setting the scenario will be concluded at a negotiating session modelled upon a European Council summit. Students will be supported by audio-visual aids and interactive handouts. The assessment of the learning outcomes will give students from the various programmes choices that are particularly tailored to the inter-disciplinary needs of their respective programmes.
Module Aims
- To provide a practical and grounded experience of politics, decision making and negotiation in the European Union.
- To offer a deeper knowledge of the dynamics of EU politics and decision making.
- To provide knowledge and understanding of the development and functioning of the European Union, its politics, institutions, decision-making, and negotiations.
- To develop an appreciation of the range of political and institutional influences that have shaped the EU's development.
- To provide the students with an interdisciplinary understanding of the European Union, its cultural, historical, sociological and political understanding, and its representation and life in Britain;
- To provide an interdisciplinary understanding of Europe to students who would not normally gain deeper knowledge on these matters;
- To introduce the students to the key concepts and debates informing the development of European Studies.
- To develop the students' skills of interdisciplinary textual analysis.
- To provide the opportunity to develop transferable skills such as the negotiation of different interests and the ability to defend a point of view in the workshops.
Intended Learning Outcomes
Having successfully completed this module, students should:
- Acquire a detailed knowledge of the EU and its representation through extensive reading
- Acquire a practical understanding of decision-making in the European Union
- Acquire a practical understanding of the issues of Crime, Policing and Terrorism in the EU
- Identify and explain the main issues of 'European studies'
- Appraise critically the dynamics behind EU politics and decision making
- Appraise critically the conceptualisations, the political, historical, cultural and sociological understandings of Europe
- Locate and assemble information on the EU by their own research
- Organise their material and articulate their arguments effectively in writing
- Appraise critically their acquired negotiating skills and transfer them into different contexts
- Through the negotiation process, students will learn to manage time pressure, and make concise explanation of their arguments. In addition, they will be able to:
- Perform their cultivated inter-personal skills
- Perform their oral and written communication skills
- Demonstrate the development of research skills
- Demonstrate research techniques
- Apply a range of methodologies to complex problems
- The essays will develop students’ critical capacities to assess both political and documentary evidence, and to make written arguments in a coherent, structured and persuasive way
- By participating in workshops, students will increase their confidence in making oral arguments and giving short presentations before an audience
- The workshop format will further encourage discussion and debate of differing viewpoints
- Preparation of the essays will help develop skills of information technology (word processing and the use of the internet for research purposes)
Teaching
The module will be delivered through lectures and seminars. Teaching will be delivered via lectures and seminars (2 hours per week).
Assessment
The assessed components on this module are coursework comprising:
- one 4,000 word essay (50%)
- one 4,000 word simulation report (50%)
Indicative Reading
- F. Cameron, An Introduction to European Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2006)
- M. Cini (ed), European Union Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
- D. Dinan, Ever Closer Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1999)
- J. Friedrichs, Fighting Terrorism and Drugs (London: Routledge, 2005)
- C. Hill and M. Smith (eds.), International Relations and the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
- S. Hix , The Political System of the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2nd edition, 2005)
- P. Ludlow, The Laeken Council (EuroComment: Brussels, 2002)
- D. Mahncke, Wyn Rees, and W.C. Thompson, Redefining Transatlantic Security Relations – The Challenge of Change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004),
- V. Mitsilegas, J. Monar, and W. Rees, The European Union and Internal Security – Guardian of the People? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
- S. Peers, EU Justice and Home Affairs Law (London: Longman, 2nd ed., 2006)
- J. Peterson and E. Bomberg, Decision-Making in the European Union (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999)
- J. Peterson and M. Shackleton (eds), The Institutions of the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
- J. Richardson (ed.), European Union: Power and Policy Making, 3rd ed. (London, Routledge, 2006)
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