Jamal Shahin
Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
16th February, 2024
Contact details for Jamal Shahin
Read and re-read this syllabus very carefully.
Please use Canvas’ messaging system for queries about the course; resend unanswered messages after four days.
Many questions can be more efficiently dealt with in person (or by re-reading this course manual or the student handbook!).
This course aims to provide EuroMaster students (of all backgrounds and following all specialisations) with a solid basis for pursuing their interest in the political and social dimensions of EU policymaking and governance. Through this course, you will (critically) understand policymaking developments at the EU level, develop an awareness of the interest-representation mechanisms at play in EU policymaking, and understand how the EU policymaking process adapts to crisis.
As a core course, we aim to address all aspects of the EuroMaster Programme Specific learning outcomes in the course.
Specifically, you will develop your skills in:
By the end of course, you should be able to:
We shall meet in plenary session at the allotted times mentioned in the schedule summary. Additional meetings may be organised and you will encouraged to participate on a ‘best-effort’ principle.
Sessions last for approximately three hours, and will generally consist of a one-hour lecture, and two hours of group work and interactive discussion. Please bring an internet-connected device (tablet, laptop) to our meetings. During the sessions, we will discuss the required reading(s) and the context around them. It is our combined task to link this to current affairs. Each session will also discuss a number of different ways in which research is also executed, either through use of empirical examples, or methodological reflections. Please always briefly review the further reading lists for each session.
To stimulate discussion during lectures, you will be invited to comment - prior to class - on the readings for the week. See the discussion forum contributions description below.
We expect you to have a basic knowledge of European integration and the institutions of the European Union, and will test this in the first class. If you feel uncomfortable with the workings of the European Union’s institutions, you can consult the books mentioned in the EuroMaster Student Handbook, and review the recommended reading lists in this course manual.
You must have a clear and strong interest in the academic and policy debates on the European Union, and wish to understand how policy is influenced by different interests.
You will need to allocate 25% of your study time to this course. This includes preparation for and participation in the meetings and completing the deliverables. The amount of effort may vary from week to week, but we try to ensure that the workload is spread throughout the course. We will try to ensure that you are not overburdened with work from different courses at any given time.
Attendance and active participation are vitally important because of the organisation of the course. Attendance and participation will be noted and not preparing for class will make it difficult to gain from the course. We shall make no attempt to ‘lecture’ about all the material in the reading list. We shall use the limited time available in a flexible way to try to ensure that you maximise your educational objectives and understanding of the tasks at hand. Contact time will also be used to encourage discussion and development of your own ideas. Students are strongly encouraged to come to the classroom with their own ideas for discussion. Given the nature of the course, participation is required in all the meetings mentioned in the course schedule). If you cannot participate physically, we shall try to ensure an alternative participation method is possible.
Reading is allocated per session, and links to required and recommended literature can be found on the Canvas site under each session’s module.
You should keep informed through regular reading of current news sources related to your chosen topics. We shall often discuss specific policy fields, which will be related to current issues. Please keep track of where you read course-relevant news.
There are no core texts for this course, although we shall use substantial elements of the Routledge Handbook on European Public Policy, edited by Nikolaos Zahariadis and Laurie Buonanno The Routledge Handbook of European Public Policy (London: Routledge, 2018), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315682723. The electronic version of this book is available via the VUB’s digital library.
We introduce databases to help navigate the material we study in our course. We shall show the utility of EUR-lex, the European Union’s legislative portal, and the equivalent database in the European Parliament, the EP legislative train.
You are required to search for additional primary and secondary literature on your own, making full use of the resources provided to you by the VUB library. For a comprehensive list of archival and academic databases available at the university, check here. As a matter of courtesy to your peers and the course convenor, please upload any additional material you find to the specific folder in our EuroMaster zotero group.
The assignments checklist provides a summary of the work to be submitted during the course. It goes without saying that you should be thinking about all your assignments from the start of the course. In the first week of the course, we shall mutually agree on the deadlines for all deliverables.
Students are requested by email to anonymously evaluate their courses when the University sends out requests for evaluation forms. Please do complete the course evaluation, as the EuroMaster Board uses the results to improve the education in your programme. You can fill in the form at the VUB’s student evaluation portal.
To ensure direct and timely feedback is given to the course convenor, you will be required to fill out short evaluation ‘quizzes’ in Canvas after sessions 1, 4, and 5. These will help the programme management understand whether you feel you are supported in achieving the educational objectives of the course, and will be used to adjust the course, wherever possible.
Your feedback is crucial, and helps us build better courses. Be critical during your course evaluation, but also be to the point, polite, and constructive. Finally, ask yourself: could I use this feedback myself?
However, you should not feel as though you have to wait until the end of the course in order to voice any issues that you may have. The course convenor invites you to engage either prior or immediately after our sessions, or via canvas messaging to discuss any concerns.
As all assignments will be graded on Canvas, you will be able to see the grading and comments on the asssignments there. You have the right to receive timely feedback on your submissions, which is provided to you as soon as possible, and at least five working days before the resit. Should you require further feedback, please do not hesitate to reach out to the course convenor.
An average of 10 is the minimum grade you need to pass the course. Lower grades on one deliverable may be compensated by higher grades on others. All asignments must, however, be submitted.
Deliverable results lapse after the end of the semester in which the final mark was awarded. If you do not complete a course in one semester, you will have to retake the course at a later opportunity, thereby incurring additional fees.
The course convenor cannot offer a new exam to students who miss an exam due to illness or other impediment. Resits are designed to provide for such circumstances. Resits are therefore not intended to always allow students two opportunities to sit an exam.
Resits are only available for individual submissions. In case of a resit, the last grade counts as the final grade. The individual paper resit will be a rewritten version of the paper, deadline to be determined by the course convenor. Individual papers that are submitted late count as resits.
You are expected to inform yourself of standard academic procedures for citing and referencing: coherence and consistency is most important. Please feel free to use your preferred referencing standard (MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard, etc.). Work will be downgraded for language, spelling, and grammatical errors when and where this obfuscates meaning or understanding. Please double check before submitting. You are expected to be familiar with the University’s code of conduct and rules on plagiarism, which are explained in the EuroMaster Student Handbook. For more information on understanding what constitutes plagiarism, see the relevant section of the VUB’s Teaching and Examination Regulations.
The following table provides a summary of sessions and activities. All classes take place between 18h and 21h.
Additional informal lectures with policymakers will be organised throughout the academic year. Although these will not be compulsory, they will enhance your understanding of the topics we cover throughout the course. Participation is strongly recommended. Keep an eye on the calendar: https://thecalendargoeshere.vub.be/, for eventual changes in the session dates.
| Session | Topic | Date | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1* | Introduction and group exercise |
1 October |
mindmapping |
| 2 | EU integration: Critical approaches |
8 October |
discussion |
| 3 | Policy cycles |
15 October |
jigsaw |
| - | Case study of choice | - | group work |
| 4* | Framing and narratives |
22 October |
pair/group |
| 5* | Interest representation mechanisms I |
31 October |
jigsaw |
| 6 | Interest representation mechanisms II |
8 November |
jigsaw |
| 7 | Dealing with crisis |
15 November |
jigsaw/debate |
| - | Paper writing | - | individual |
* feedback quizzes to be filled in in Canvas
We introduce the course and its assignments, and then carry out a group exercise to show our understanding of the EU policymaking process. Prepare to be active!
Required reading:
Further reading:
You are requested to read all three of the required readings. Your opinion on the texts will be sollicited during our group discussions (which will be launched by a lecture and a reflection on your forum contributions, so make sure you are familiar with all three, and intimately familiar with at least one of them!
Required reading:
Further reading:
We shall go through key stages of the EU’s policymaking process, linking ‘public policy’ to ‘European integration’. We shall discuss the literature at hand using the ‘jigsaw method’.
Required reading:
Jigsaw reading:
Further reading:
Examples of policy framing and policy narratives in key policy fields will be provided, and discussed in class. Come prepared to think about how a policy area that interests you can be shaped by a policy narrative, and how this helps you research your chosen policy field. We will discuss this in pairs, and then in bigger groups. We will also dedicate part of this meeting to presentations of case study groups.
Required reading:
Further reading:
In this session, we discuss (in)formal practices of consultation and policymaking, and how that reflects on the level of insitutional design. In our first deep analysis of an EU policy document, we shall address how the European Commission also addresses the issues we have discussed in the previous lectures. We will also dedicate part of this meeting to presentations of case study groups.
Required reading:
Jigsaw reading:
Further reading:
In this session, we dig deeper into the interest representation mechanisms in the EU, focusing on the mechanics of how this plays out in EU policymaking, through concrete empirical examples. We start with a lecture and then move into the jigsaw: the lecture will also explain how to read (and write!) a ‘review article’, so please do read Berkhout (2009). In the lecture and the jigsaw, we shall focus on mechanisms to engage with different stakeholders in EU policymaking, taking a reflective perspective on how democracy works in the EU. At the end of the session, we shall take time to prepare for the ‘debate’ for next session.
Required reading:
Jigsaw reading:
Further reading:
To end on a positive note (!), we look at some of the literature that deals with the EU’s mechanisms that frame and respond to crises. This literature will help you reflect on the processes we have analysed above from a broader perspective, thus giving you the experience in reading texts that address the grand stories of European integration. We shall also use this insipiration to organise a short debate with the subject: ‘is the EU policymaking process fit for purpose?’ Finally, we shall discuss the course in its entirety, and you will have an opportunity to provide feedback to the convenor.
Jigsaw reading:
To pass the course, you need to submit different pieces of work. Please note the following requirements for essays and other papers:
PDF format, A4, fully justified paragraphs, with single line spacing and page numbers identified. Your documents should also be proofread. The following information should be clearly marked on the front page of the submission:
All assignments are submitted via Canvas: documents submitted through email will be deleted.
These requirements do not apply to other deliverables for the course.
Note that the front page of your submission is not included in the page limits described below.
Late submissions will be treated as resits.
This should be done through the discussion forums. In the discussion forums, you should address at least one of the articles for the week. The aim is to stimulate a discussion about the text between you all: you should provide one citation from a required text that aroused your interest. You should reference it correctly, and write a short sentence as to why you chose that citation. Feel free to ask your colleagues questions about their citation in the discussion. You should try to do this every week. These are not graded individually, but your contribution to the forum over the entire course will be.
You shall choose a case study of ongoing legislation/policy that allows you to address some of the issues covered in class. You should choose to focus on a specific and contemporary ongoing policy discussion in your group: the more specific, the better! You will be required to outline the stakeholders and their interests, the policy field and its challenges, and the potential conclusions.
Some pointers:
We shall discuss how to elaborate on this deliverable in the second session of the course.
This is not per se an academic text, but more an opportunity to show your skills as persuasive writers and ingenuous researchers, whilst referring to a chosen conceptual approach or approaches.
You will be required to give a short (5-10 minute) presentation on your case study, which should highlight only the key elements of your findings. Upload the presentation material (one page document or slides) to Canvas at 23:59 the day before your presentation so that all colleagues can review your slides before your moment of fame.
You will write a short individual research paper about a specific research topic related to a central theme in the course. We shall discuss your research paper topics during moments in the last two sessions.
The research paper should cover a topic we have raised in class and/or in the literature. It can be related to any policy field, but must cover either a) policymaking processes, or b) interest representation in your chosen field.
More specific questions are easier to grade, and often easier to write. This paper is also about expressing your opinions, and so you should try to be argumentative and be willing to sustain your argument. You are expected to provide a coherent answer, that contains your own reflections and thoughts. It goes without saying that plagiarism (including automated text generation) will be firmly sanctioned. If any form of nefarious behaviour is suspected, you will defend your paper orally before the grades are deliberated (generally in February). In this case, the announced grade may be reviewed and/or a resit paper may be requested.
Please use full referencing, according to your preferred style, and include a bibliography at the end of the paper. Your bibliography should include at least five texts mentioned in this course manual (required or recommended reading).
Please add additional sources you find to our Zotero library, in the respective folder (“PMIR”).
You will be required to provide a short (one page) summary of your plans for your paper (D0.3) by the deadline identified in the assignments checklist. You will receive feedback from the lecturer and your peers through Canvas, and is therefore not anonymous. The summary should cover:
This can be in bullet point form.
| Item | Weight | Date due | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| D1: Discussion forum contributions | 10% | running deadlines | short contributions |
| D2: Case study paper & presentation | 40% | 21 October, 23:59 | 5 pages |
| D0.3: Research paper proposal | P/F | 25 October, 17:00 | 1 page |
| D3: Research paper | 50% | 5 November, 17:00 | 2500 words |
| Active participation | - | every session | participation expected |
Please stick to the maximum lengths mentioned (there is a ±10% margin)! Papers that go beyond the limits will be rejected. The word count mentioned includes your bibliography.
It is not possible to ask for postponement of our mutually-agreed submission deadlines.
If you read this far, congratulations. Enjoy the course, and please don’t forget to reflect on how you feel you addressed the learning outcomes once the course is over!
@online{shahin2024,
author = {Shahin, Jamal},
title = {Policymaking and {Interest} {Representation} in the {EU}},
date = {2024-02-16},
langid = {en}
}