History and Politics of European Integration

The course aims to equip students with a basic understanding of the process of European integration at a historical and institutional level (in the sense of an intergovernmental negotiation process) and with the tools necessary to understand the expansive, multifaceted interest shown by European societies since the 1950s in forming a European "Union."
In keeping with the multitiered governance that characterises the European system, the course will reconstruct the history of European integration, focusing on the crucial moments and a plurality of actors: governments (European and non-European), civil society movements, political parties and economic stakeholders which have promoted, blocked or otherwise influenced the integration process.
This will enable students to critically assess the binary tension currently at play in the European Union between national interests and supranational tendencies.

Upon completion of the course, students will have acquired a global overview of the European integration process; they will understand the discourse between the Community/Union and developing countries from a historical decolonisation perspective and in terms of the mutual influence between North and South; they will be able to critically assess the relationship between "Europe" and key players in the international system - first and foremost the United States of America - without overlooking other global powers that have subsequently expressed a positive, negative or ambiguous interest in establishing economic and political ties with the Union. Students will also be well-versed in the technical language used to describe the integration process and its development without falling victim to the rhetoric that - in Europe in particular - can prevent the issue from being assessed objectively.