210122 SE M5: EU and Europeanisation (2019S)

In today’s world, the success of EU foreign policy increasingly depends on the EU’s ability to instantaneously respond to stimuli and pressures originating from both the international and the intra-EU levels. Externally, the EU’s global environment is characterized by the reconfiguration of power, growing divisions, and the contestation of established liberal order. Simultaneously, the EU’s neighbourhood is increasingly conflict prone and instable, triggering migration flows and the proliferation of illiberal values. Domestically, the EU faces severe internal conflicts, marked by austerity, Brexit, growing nationalism, populism and new protectionism. The central aim of the seminar is to enable students to understand the workings of the EU foreign policy-making system and central challenges the EU faces both externally and from within. Drawing on major theoretical perspectives in the field of European foreign policy, this seminar explores the links between these internal and external policy dynamics and its consequence for EU foreign policy in terms of strategy, policy-making, and policy-responses. In addition, social science writing, presentation and communication skills will be practiced as different steps in developing the seminar paper. The seminar consists of three main phases:
• Phase one presents key works on EU foreign policy and the way current crises impact on the analysis of EU foreign policy.
• In phase two, students choose the topic for their seminar papers. Students will probably be divided into pairs or groups in line with their selected topics and guided in developing the research design of their seminar paper. Group consultations with the professor can take place to allow in-depth debt debate of individual topics, and student-only meetings in each group.
• The third phase consists of plenary sessions to hold and discuss student presentations on their seminar papers.
Methods include individual work, peer feedback, group work, presentations, and debate.