European Union governance

12-14 October 2023 | Executive seminar

The European Union (EU) is a powerful and increasingly contested political arena and policymaker – in EU member states and across the wider world. In this course, we analyse the EU’s institutions, decision-making and core policies and discuss key political and legal challenges.

The course approaches European governance from three angles. First, the course introduces the EU’s institutions and their competences, from agenda-setting through legislation to compliance. We explain why the EU’s institutions hold particular competences and how these competences have evolved over time. Second, the course analyses core policy areas, including fiscal and economic governance, global regulation and climate change. We aim to understand the decisions that have shaped – and still shape – the reach and remit of these policies. Third, the course analyses key issues of European governance, including the rule of law, politicisation and legitimacy. The final part helps course participants to comprehend these challenges and to debate how these challenges could be addressed. Teaching mixes interactive lecture elements with student-led discussions, small group work, research exercises and a case study on how to influence EU law-making in one of the three policy areas addressed.

Across sessions, participants will

1. gain in-depth knowledge of the EU’s institutions, politics and governance challenges;
2. learn to develop arguments and critically assess empirical evidence;
3. exercise the use of relevant databases and policy documents;
4. train transferable skills for the analysis of and potential experience in “Brussels”.

Main topics

1. EU institutions and competences in the policy process, from agenda-setting through legislation to compliance
2. Core policy areas, including an explanation of policies’ reach and remit
3. Key issues of political and legal challenges of European governance, faced by the public, politicians and policymakers
4. Overall: ability to understand, explain and evaluate European governance

This seminar is offered as part of the Executive MPA programme and in the open enrolment programme.