Central European University Department of International Relations
EUROPE IN CRISES:
INTEGRATION UNDER INTERNATIONAL AND INTERNAL THREAT (4 Credits)
Lecturer: Dr Daniel Izsak
Office Hours: D419, on Thursdays, with prior appointment
Course Description
“Europe will be forged in crises” – predicted one of the ‘founding fathers’ of European integration, Jean Monnet. He was most certainly right about the latter: crises aplenty. In the past few years, the European Union has found itself facing Russia and its war against Ukraine, China, and even the United States under President Trump; none of them are particularly friendly. The chilling of the external environment came at a conjuncture of internal crises: Brexit, anti-EU, nationalist movements and governments in member states, the declining faith of pro-EU elites in the idea of an ‘ever closer union’, and the conflict of creditor and debtor countries in the Eurozone and between the core and periphery. The former President of the European Council called these:
unprecedented geopolitical and existential threats to the very survival of the EU. While politicians can disappear overnight, seemingly changing the landscape, the fundamentals of these crises, influencing the course of integration, remain.
The course engages with these ‘four crises’ of Europe: external, economic, internal, and ideational, and with the scholarly controversies about how to interpret them. In the final part, the course will look at whether these crises lead to further integration as Monnet predicted and will consider recent proposals about how to reshape the EU, and what these possible responses may mean for the global order. The course is designed as a mix of interactive lectures and seminar discussions based on the required readings; it will engage with a wide variety of IR, IPE, and regionalism concepts and will also make use of contemporary sources (articles, speeches, etc.) to link scholarly approaches to interpreting current affairs, empirics to theory. The course normally includes a field trip to a border region (covid situation permitting) to experience first-hand how the various concepts and policies on overlapping layers of integration function in real life and how they 'create integration', and to observe the current limits of this process, linked to our classroom discussions and readings.
Learning Outcomes
Through engagement with current issues and related scholarly debates students will gain a better understanding of the diverse approaches to the study of the European Union, as well as the complexity of processes shaping Europe today. By the end of the course students will be able to:
1) develop a critical understanding of the crises that challenge the EU and post-war structures in Europe
2) identify and critically assess different approaches to the study of European integration
3) situate European political and economic developments in a global context as well as draw lessons for the future
4) apply diverse regionalism concepts to assess other regional integration schemes in the world.
Course Requirements
There are no pre-set right-or-wrong answers to the issues raised in this course; we will search for them together during seminar-style discussions by drawing on relevant texts, concepts, and theories, following in-class student presentation(s). Students do not need to have done prior studies in the workings of the EU to take this course. The course focuses on foreign policy, security, political economy, ideational, and institutional aspects of Europe and the EU.
All students can successfully complete this course by fulfilling the formal requirements as well as demonstrating intellectual engagement, effort, and preparation: willingness to go beyond simple summaries and easy answers during class discussions and in the required papers. To succeed in this course, students are required to prepare for and actively participate in in-class discussions. They are to thoroughly read the required texts for each class. Students are required to critically engage with the texts when preparing for each class. This means, on the most basic level, identifying (taking notes, highlighting) the main arguments, their strength and weaknesses, and the theoretical concepts (when relevant) applied by the author(s). Please do not hesitate to ask for help and/or consultations.
1. Attendance and active participation(!) in class discussions based on the
readings (15 % of final grade). Attendance rules of the department apply. (Please do not use laptops in class.)
2. One 1500-word (excluding footnotes and bibliography) short paper (double- spaced, Times New Roman, 12-points). (20% of final grade). The paper should follow the structure, format, and style of standard academic papers. Students are to select a topic from those discussed in class; the required readings should only serve as a starting point, additional and relevant literature should be used to identify and map out an academic debate, critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the discussed concepts, leading to a potential research question.
(Further details are to be discussed in class). Submission deadline: Saturday, 22 October, 23:59 CET. Submit via Moodle in *.doc format (file name:
yourname.doc). Late submission will result in downgrading. Consulting with the Centre for Academic Writing is strongly advised.
3. One 10-minute long, in-class presentation (20% of final grade), which should relate to the topic for the day, but it should not be a summary of the required readings. Rather, it should use the readings as a starting point only and engage with the related scholarly literature to raise a puzzling question, to support an argument, or critically comment on an interesting aspect. The presentation may bring in up-to-date elements that relate to the topic from trusted news sources (photos, videos, etc.). Sign up on the sign-up sheet after the first class.
4. One 3500-4000-word long (excluding footnotes and bibliography, double- spaced, Times New Roman 12-points) research paper (45% of final grade).
Topics are to be discussed with the instructor but in general, should relate to any of the topics covered in this course. Submission deadline: Wednesday, 21
December, 23:59 CET. Submit via Moodle. Late submission will result in downgrading. Consulting with the Centre for Academic Writing is strongly advised. (Please beware that CAW is only available on weekdays.)
All departmental requirements about academic dishonesty, etc. apply. Late submission of assignments without prior approval will result in downgrading.
Course Outline and Readings
Seminar 1: Introduction (Overview of course, assignment of seminar presentations) Seminar 2: Definitions of Crisis
Donald Tusk, “United we stand, divided we fall: A letter to the 27 heads of state or government on the future of the EU”, 2017, 1-2.
Timothy Garton Ash, “The Crisis of Europe: How the Union Came Together and Why it’s Falling Apart”, Foreign Affairs, (Vol. 91, No. 5, 2012), 2-15.
Arjen Boin, Paul ‘t Hart, and Allan McConnell, “Crisis Exploitation: Political and Policy Impacts of Framing Contests”, Journal of European Public Policy, (Vol. 16, No. 1, 2009), 81-106.
PART I: The (External) Crisis of the EU’s Security Underpinnings
Seminar 3: Integration as Countering Threat: Classical Realist v. Neorealist Take Sebastian Rosato, “Europe’s Troubles: Power Politics and the State of the European Project”, International Security, (Vol. 35, No. 4, 2011), 45-86.
Daniel Kenealy and Konstantinos Kostagiannis, “Realist Visions of European Union:
E.H. Carr and Integration", Millenium: Journal of International Studies, (Vol. 41, No. 2, 2013), 221-246.
Seminar 4: Regional Security
Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, "Neoclassical Realism and the Study of Regional Order", In: T. V.
Paul (ed.), International Relations Theory and Regional Transformation, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012), 74-103.
Seminar 5: Stability in Europe: the Post-WW2 Deal
Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium, (Cornell University Press, 2005), 1-36 (Recommended 198-217).
John J. Mearsheimer, “Why is Europe Peaceful Today?”, ECPR Keynote Lecture, (2010), 1-11.
Seminar 6: The Transatlantic Alliance: From ‘Pivot’ to ‘Obsolete’ to the ‘New Cold War’?
Robert Kagan, “Power and Weakness”, Policy Review, (No. 113, 2002), 1-18.
Thomas Risse: “The Transatlantic Security Community: Erosion from Within?”, In:
Riccardo Alcaro, John Peterson, and Ettore Greco (eds.), The West and the Global Power Shift: Transatlantic Relations and Global Governance, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 21-42.
Seminar 7: War in Europe – Russia and the EU
Carl Bildt, Russia, the European Union, and the Eastern Partnership, ECFR Riga Series, 2015, 1-12.
http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_russia_eu_and_eastern_partnership3029
Hiski Haukkala, "From Cooperative to Contested Europe? The Conflict in Ukraine as a Culmination of a Long-Term Crisis in EU-Russia Relations", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, (Vol. 23, No. 1, 2015), 25-40.
Seminar 8: War by Europe, on Europe, for Europe? (TBC)
John Mearsheimer, “Why the West is Principally Responsible for the Ukrainian Crisis”, The Economist, 19 March 2022, 1-4.
Francis Fukuyama, “Putin’s War on the Liberal Order”, Financial Times, 4 March 2022, 1-10.
Timothy Garton Ash, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will change the face of Europe for ever”, The Guardian, 24 February 2022, 1-5.
Seminars 9: Global Order – China and the EU
Richard Maher, "The Elusive EU-China Strategic Partnership", International Affairs, (Vol.
92, No. 4, July 2016), 959-976.
Ursula von der Leyen, “Statement by President von der Leyen Following the EU-China Leaders’ Meeting”, European Commission, (Brussels: 14 September 2020), 1-2.
Charles Michel, “Remarks by President Charles Michel after the EU-China Leaders’
Meeting”, Council of the European Union, (Brussels: 14 September 2020), 1-2.
Stuart Lau, “EU Starts Work on Rival to China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, Politico, (6 July 2021), 1-3.
PART II: The Crisis of Economic Integration:
Seminar 10: The Heart of European Integration: The Regional Market
Walter Mattli, “Chapter 4 – The European Union”, The Logic of Regional Integration:
Europe and Beyond, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 68-108.
Recommended readings:
Soo Yeon Kim, Edward D. Mansfield, and Helen V. Milner, “Regional Trade
Governance”, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 323-351.
Walter Mattli, “Explaining Regional Integration Outcomes”, Journal of European Public Policy, (Vol. 6, No. 1, 1999), 1-27.
Seminar 11: The Single Market: The Current Extent of Globalisation?
Wayne Sandholtz and John Zysman, “1992: Recasting the European Bargain”, World Politics, (Vol. 42, No. 1, 1989), 95-128.
Christoph Hermann, “Neoliberalism in the European Union”, Studies in Political Economy, (Vol. 79, No. 1, 2007), 61-90.
Seminar 12: Core and Periphery
Jose M. Magone, Brigid Laffan and Christian Schweiger, “The European Union as a Dualist Political Economy: Understanding Core-Periphery Relations”, In: J. M. Magone, B. Laffan and C. Schweiger (eds.), Core-Periphery Relations in the European Union:
Power and Conflict in a Dualist Political Economy, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), 1- 11.
Laszlo Bruszt and Visnja Vukov, “Making States for the Single Market: European Integration and the Reshaping of Economic States in the Southern and Eastern Peripheries of Europe”, West European Politics, (Vol. 40, No. 4, 2017), 663-687.
Seminar 13: The Eurozone: Creditors and Debtors
Hubert Zimmermann, “The Euro Trilemma, or: How the Eurozone Fell into a
Neofunctionalist Legitimacy Trap”, Journal of European Integration, (Vol. 38, No. 4, 2016), 425-439.
Wolfgang Streeck and Lea Elsasser, "Monetary Disunion: The Domestic Politics of Euroland", Journal of European Public Policy, (Vol. 23, No 1, 2016), 1-24.
Recommended reading:
Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer, “The Design Faults of the Economic Monetary Union”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, (Vol. 19, No. 1, 2011), 21-32.
PART III: The (Internal) Crisis of Decision Making:
Seminar 14: Who Drives Integration
Christopher J. Bickerton, Dermot Hodson, and Uwe Puetter, “The New
Intergovernmentalism: European Integration in the Post-Maastricht Era”, Journal of Common Market Studies, (Vol. 53, No. 4, 2015), 703-722.
Frank Schimmelfennig, “What’s the News in ‘New Intergovernmentalism’? A Critique of Bickerton, Hodson, and Puetter”, Journal of Common Market Studies, (Vol. 53, No. 4, 2015), 723-730.
Jens Blom-Hansen and Roman Senninger, “The Commission in EU Policy Preparation”, Journal of Common Market Studies, (Vol. 59, No. 3, 2021), 625-642.
Seminar 15: The Rule(s) of Exception
Paul James Cardwell, “The End of Exceptionalism and a Strengthening of Coherence?
Law and Legal Integration in the EU Post-Brexit”, Journal of Common Market Studies, (Vol. 57, No. 6, 2019), 1407-1418.
Richard Bellamy and Sandra Kroger, “A Demoicratic Justification of Differentiated Integration in a Heterogeneous EU”, Journal of European Integration, (Vol. 39, No. 5, 2017), 625-639.
Seminar 16: Federal Policies by Confederal Structures
John Kincaid, “Confederal Federalism and Citizen Representation in the European Union”, West European Politics, (Vol. 22, No. 2, 1999), 34-58.
Giandomenico Majone, "Federation, Confederation, and Mixed Government: A EU-US Comparison", In: Anand Menon and Martin Schain, Comparative Federalism: The European Union and the United States in Comparative Perspective, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 121-147.
Recommended reading:
John McCormick, "Confederalism as a Solution for Europe", In: Riccardo Fiorentini and Guido Montani, The European Union and Supranational Political Economy, (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), 67-81.
PART IV: The (Ideational) Crisis of Integrative Processes:
Seminar 17: Regional Integration: ‘An Idea that Reverberates’
Jeffrey T. Checkel, “Regional Identities and Communities”, In: Tanja A. Borzel and Thomas Risse, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 559-579.
Lars-Erik Cederman, “Nationalism and Bounded Integration: What it Would Take to Construct a European Demos”, European Journal of International Relations, (Vol. 7, No.
2, 2001), 139-174.
Charlemagne, “How Netflix is Creating a Common European Culture”, The Economist, (3 April 2021), 2-4.
Seminar 18: Brexit
Ulrich Krotz and Joachim Schild, “Back to the Future? Franco-German Bilaterism in Europe’s Post-Brexit Union”, Journal of European Public Policy, (Vol. 25, No. 8, 2018), 1154-1173.
Brigid Laffan, “How the EU27 Came to Be”, Journal of Common Market Studies, (Vol.
57, No. 1, 2019), 13-27.
Recommended readings:
Ferdi De Ville and Gabriel Siles-Brugge, “The Impact of Brexit on EU Policies”, Politics and Governance, (Vol. 7, No. 3, 2019), 1-6.
Tim Oliver, “European and International Views on Brexit”, Journal of European Public Policy, (Vol. 23, No. 9, 2016), 1321-1328.
Jonathan Hopkin, "When Polanyi Met Farage: Market Fundamentalism, Economic Nationalism, and Britain's Exit from the European Union", The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, (Vol. 19, No. 3, 2017), 465-478.
Seminar 19: Anti-EU Nationalism & European Demos
Federico Ottavio Reho, "A New Europeanism Before It is Too Late", European View, (Vol. 16, No 1, June 2017), 85-91.
Bowman H. Miller, "Tomorrow's Europe: A Never Closer Union", Journal of European Integration (Vol. 39, No. 4, 2017), 421-433.
Seminar 20: Losing Faith in the ‘Ever Closer Union’
Guy Verhofstadt, "Speak Up for Europe and Win", The New York Times, (16 May 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/opinion/speak-up-for-europe-and-win.html
Jan-Werner Müller, "Constitutional Fantasy", London Review of Books, (Vol. 39, No. 11, 1 June 2017), 9-12.
PART V: The Future of Europe Seminar 21: Integration Outcomes
Benjamin Leruth, Stefan Ganzle, and Jarle Trondal, “Differentiated Integration and Disintegration in the EU after Brexit: Risks versus Opportunities”, Journal of Common Market Studies, (Vol. 57, No. 6, 2019), 1383-1394.
European Commission, White Paper on the Future of Europe: Reflections and Scenarios for the EU27 by 2025, 15-29.
Recommended reading:
Philippe C. Schmitter, “Imagining the Future of the Euro-Polity with the Help of New Concepts”, In: Gary Marks, Fritz W. Sharpf, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Wolfgang Streeck, Governance in the European Union, (London: SAGE, 1996), 121-151.
Seminar 22: Forged in Crises?
Gideon Rachman, “The EU’s Stability Will Again Confound its Critics”, The Financial Times, (12 April 2021), 1-3.
Ullrich Fichtner, “How Europe Became a Model for the 21st Century”, Der Spiegel, (4 February 2021), 1-18.
Andrew Moravcsik, “Europe is Still a Superpower”, Foreign Policy, (13 April 2017).
Seminar 23: PUBLIC HOLIDAY – No Class Seminar 24: Conclusions
