Prof Christopher Anderson CBG 6.05

This course is available on the MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (LSE & Sciences Po), MSc in European and International Public Policy, MSc in European and International Public Policy (LSE and Bocconi), MSc in European and International Public Policy (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in Political Economy of Europe, MSc in Political Economy of Europe (LSE and Sciences Po) and MSc in The Global Political Economy of China and Europe (LSE and Fudan). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course introduces students to governance in Europe at the national and European Union levels. This course has two objectives, one substantive and one methodological. First, students learn about politics and policymaking in European democracies and the European Union. Topics include the demand for and supply of policy options: e.g., public policy preferences, government formation and duration, direct democracy and accountability, and supranational policy coordination. Second, this course is intended to introduce students to a set of analytical and empirical tools and concepts for understanding how political institutions and political agents jointly generate public policy, and to apply these tools in examining political and policy outcomes in European states. Lessons about political decision making, institutions, and the policy making process will be understood from the perspective of decision makers – that is, an individual or organisation that develops strategy in order to advance policy change. 

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures and seminars totalling a minimum of 25 hours across Michaelmas Term. The teaching will be delivered this year through a combination of online and on-campus formats (or if required, online only). This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Michaelmas Term, and a review session will be held at the start of the Summer Term to prepare for the online assessment.

Students will be expected to produce 1 presentation in the MT.

• Budge, Ian. 2019. Politics: A Unified Introduction to How Democracy Works. Routledge.
• Powell, G. Bingham. 2019. Ideological Representation: Achieved and Astray: Elections, Institutions, and the Breakdown of Ideological Congruence in Parliamentary Democracies. Cambridge University Press.
• Putnam, R. (1988). Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games. In International Organizations, 42(3), pp. 427-460.
• Tsebelis, G. (2002). Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton University Press.
• Pollack, M. (2015). Theorizing EU Policy-Making. In Wallace et al. (Eds). (2015). Policy-making in the European Union. Oxford: OUP.
• Moravcsik, A. (1998). The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht. Cornell University Press.
• Hagemann, S., Bailer, S. and Herzog, A. (2019) ‘Signals to their parliaments?: Governments’ use of votes and policy statements in the EU Council, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 57 (3), 634-650
• Boerzel, T., Hofmann, T. Panke, D. and Sprungk, K. (2010). Obstinate and Inefficient: Why Member States Do Not Comply With European Law. In Comparative Political Studies, 43(11), pp. 1363-1390.
• Schneider, C. and Slantchev, B. (2018). The Domestic Politics of International Cooperation: Germany and the European Debt Crisis. In International Organization, 72(1), pp. 1-31.
• Hobolt, S. (2016). The Brexit Vote: A Divided Nation, A Divided Continent. In Journal of European Public Policy, 23(9), pp. 1259-1277.
• De Vries, C. (2018). Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration. Oxford: OUP.

Essay (10%, 1000 words) in the MT.
Online assessment (90%) in the ST.

The online assessment for this course will be administered via Moodle.  Questions will be made available at a set date/time and students will be given a set period in the ST to complete the answers to questions and upload their responses back into Moodle.

Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.