Prof Sara Hobolt

This course is available on the BA in Social Anthropology, BSc in History and Politics, BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Social and Public Policy with Politics, BSc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, BSc in Politics, BSc in Politics and Data Science, BSc in Politics and Economics, BSc in Politics and History, BSc in Politics and International Relations, BSc in Politics and Philosophy and BSc in Social Anthropology. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

Students must have completed Introduction to Political Science (GV101).

This course introduces students to the politics and policies of the European Union, focusing on institutions, political actors and processes, popular challenges to the EU as well as key policies areas ranging from monetary and trade policies to migration and foreign policies. The course is divided into two parts; (i) Government and Politics: the EU as a political system, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament, the Court of Justice and Judicial politics, public opinion and European Parliament elections, parties and Europe, interest representation; (ii) Public Policy. Policy sessions usually include: the policy-making process, the Single Market, budgetary policies, redistributive policies, EMU, asylum, migration and refugee policies, social and employment policies, external relations policies, climate and energy policies and others.

This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 41 hours across the Autumn, Winter and Spring Terms. This course includes reading weeks in Week 6 of both the AT and WT.

Two formative essays, in addition to one summative essay, during the course.

S Hix and B Hoyland, The Political System of the European Union, 4th edn. (2022); C De Vries, SB Hobolt, S-O Proksch and J Slapin, Foundations of European Politics: A Comparative Approach (2021); H Wallace, M Pollack & A Young (Eds), Policy-Making in the European Union, 8th edn. (2020).

Exam (75%, duration: 3 hours) in the spring exam period.
Essay (25%) in the WT.

GENERAL COURSE STUDENTS ONLY:

The Class Summary Grade for General Course students will be calculated as follows: 15% class participation, 80% formative coursework (each formative essay counts for 40%) and 5% attendance.

The Exam Grade for General Course students will be 25% summative essay and 75% exam.