This course welcomes MA students from different national and disciplinary backgrounds, including students who train to become teachers and want to deepen their understanding of the functioning of the European Union.
The seminar offers students the opportunity to improve their understanding of academic and political discussions on the concept of rule of law and democracy and to foster their knowledge on political conditions in the region of the Western Balkans. They will also engage in the analysis of attitudes, behaviours and policies of political actors. These can be individuals, judges, civil society groups who engage in defence of the rule of law or politicians, parties, entrepreneurs or other individuals or groups that act against it and contribute to its decline. By doing that, the course will also look into the EU’s enlargement conditionality and the impact that this has on the region and vice versa.
The course will include an excursion with a bloc seminar at UC Louvain and site visits to Brussels as a contribution to the Circle U alliance.
The course aims to actively involve participants in different types of knowledge acquisition by:
- in-depth reading and guided text-based discussions of relevant academic texts made available through HU’s electronic learning platform Moodle
- participation in an EU simulation together with students from UC Louvain including a trip to Louvain and Brussels
- reflection upon further empirical examples
ShapingEU 