Multi-Level-Governance in the EU

Brief description

  • Constitutional asymmetry of the integration process between positive and negative integration
  • Concept of governance: hierarchy, negotiation and competition as central features of European political governance
  • Actors, institutions and cycles of policy coordination from the basics of economic policy via the European Semester to the European Pillar of Social Rights
  • Multi-level governance research as a construct of integration theory: diffusion, deliberative policy learning, competitive and adaptive pressures
  • Sovereignty reservations and democratic problems of macroeconomic governance and social policy coordination in the EU and the Eurozone

Mode of delivery

face to face

Type

compulsory

Recommended or required reading and other learning resources/tools

Benz, Arthur/Dose, Nicolai (2010): Governance – Regieren in komplexen Regelsystemen. Eine Einführung, 2. Aufl., Wiesbaden: Springer.
Hacker, Björn (2020): Behelfsbrücke EU-Politikkoordinierung. Breit ausgebaute, aber wackelige Konstruktion, in: Becker, Peter/Lippert, Barbara (Hrsg.): Handbuch Europäische Union, Wiesbaden: Springer Nature, S. 645-665.
Knodt, Michèle/Große Hüttmann, Martin (2012): Der Multi-Level Governance-Ansatz, in: Bieling, Hans-Jürgen/Lerch, Marika (Hrsg.): Theorien der europäischen Integration, 3. Aufl., Wiesbaden: Springer VS, S. 187-205.
Molle, Willem (2011): European Economic Governance: The quest for consistency and effectiveness, Oxon/New York: Routledge.
Scharpf, Fritz W. (2002): The European Social Model. Coping with the challenges of diversity, in: Journal of Common Market Studies, 40:4, S. 645-670.
Wöhl, Stefanie et al. (Hrsg., 2020): The State of the European Union. Fault Lines in European Integration, Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Current literature will be announced by the lecturer at the beginning of the semester.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Teamwork; simulation of a fictitious coordination process; expert hearings by relevant stakeholders with independent evaluation; group discussions; excursion to the Federal Ministry of Economics and/or the Representation of the European Commission; drafting of a memorandum in text form.

Assessment methods and criteria

Presentation (40%) - group work within the context of a fictitious conference on a concrete coordination process, and homework (60%) - preparation of a memorandum on the positioning of an actor in the co-ordination process.

Prerequisites and co-requisites

None

Infos

Degree programme

Europäische Wirtschaftspolitik

Cycle

International Programme

ECTS Credits

5.00

Language of instruction

German

Curriculum

Full-Time

Academic year

2025

Semester

3 WS

Incoming

No

Learning outcome

After successful completion of the module, students can:

  • identify the recent historical developments of the integration process and explain the difference between regulative and coordinative modes of integration
  • localise the legal bases of policy coordination and outline their cycles in summary form
  • classify actors and their positioning in the governance system according to political and economic, national and supranational interests
  • apply political science concepts of integration research to current problems of political governance, to analyse the effectiveness and efficiency of political coordination and its interdependences with the help of qualitative methods and categorise coordination successes and failures in different policy fields
  • assess the opportunities and risks of the governance mode of political steering and its relevance for EU integration

Course code

0899-23-01-VZ-DE-M3.1