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BA European Integration - Enhanced Level

Students are able to explain the functionality and differentiation of the political system of the EU. They discuss and answer questions illustrated by individual organs and institutions of internal and institutional decision-making processes and the characteristics of individual political fields.

European Union of Regions

What unites regions like Wallonia, Tyrol and Umbria?

The tide of 'Europe of the Regions' rhetoric that dominated much political discussion and thinking in the 1980s and 1990s has gradually ebbed. Governance in Europe today may be characterized as 'multi-level', but the nation state remains the dominant level for many purposes. Are Europe's regions, and European regionalism, therefore of diminishing consequence? This seminar addresses this question by examining the experiences of regions and regionalism across Western Europe (Austria and France) and shedding some light on the vital stakeholder within the EU institutions. There is a growing diversity of European regions, and a wide variety of regionalizing imperatives like the fancy macro regional concept. Regionalism may not have overthrown the nation state, but Europe's regions, and European regionalism, have a persisting importance to the European integration process. Thus, the seminar focuses on:

1) European regions an regionalization

2) The subnational level (case study: Austrian and France)

3) Structure, of the Committee of Regions

4) Stakeholders within the EU institutions (Council, Parliament, Commission)

5) Interregional and cross-border cooperation

6) EU Strategy for the Alpine Region: Presidency of Tyrol 2018

7) Participation of the civil society

Lecture, short presentations of the students, group work, discussion and scientific field trip

Position papers and in class presentations, performance.

Final paper (only mandatory if not taking part in the field trip)

Dialer, Doris; Mast, Florian (2012): EU-Lobbying der Regionen am Beispiel der österreichischen Bundesländer. In: Filzmaier, Peter; Plaikner, Peter; Duffek, Karl A.: Bundesländer und Landtage. Föderalismus und politischer Wettbewerb, österreichische Besonderheiten und internationaler Vergleich. Wien: Facultas (= Edition netPOL - Politische Kommunikation 3, S. 74 - 90.

Stahl, Gerhard (2014): Der Ausschuss der Regionen: Politische Vertretung und Lobbyist für Städte und Regionen, in: Dialer, Doris/Richter, Margarethe (Hrsg.): Lobbying in der Europäischen Union. Zwischen Professionalisierung und Regulierung, Wiesbaden: Springer, S. 127-140.

successful completion of compulsory modules 1, 2 , 3 and 5