EURA330-19SU2 (D) Summer Nov 2019 start (Distance)

Special Topic: Contemporary Policy Challenges in the European Union.

30 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 11 November 2019
End Date: Sunday, 9 February 2020
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 22 November 2019
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 17 January 2020

Description

The concept of power underpins this course in that the specific focus will be the policy process as the ultimate arena of power in society. Specific questions to be addressed include: What has been the historical trajectory of the integration process? Which are the powerful institutions and how are they organised? Does their power vary over time and circumstance? What kinds of institutional conflict (turf wars) emerge? How does change take place?

EUROPEAN UNION DEVELOPMENT POLICY IN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

The EU is one of the most important actors in international development, implementing a range of policies and frameworks that impact the lives of a significant proportion of the world’s population. Development policy is therefore a major theme in European Union Studies. This course, however, steps beyond a narrow EU Studies focus, drawing on Development Studies to frame examination of the EU as a development actor. In addition to an understanding of the role of the EU, this course therefore provides students with an introduction to the study of international development, examining key paradigmatic debates on the nature of development and underdevelopment, considering the international institutional context within which development takes place, and exploring a range of historic and contemporary issues impacting on the development process.

Development cooperation is an arena in which the European Union is possessed of a significant footprint, and one characterised by intense engagement between itself and its developing country partners. This module examines the role of the European Union as an international development actor, situating analysis within a broader understanding of the international political economy of development. It thus moves beyond conventional approaches which have sought to define the EU’s role in international development through reference to internal policy dynamics (e.g. historic institutionalism), or through the application of Eurocentric theoretical frames (e.g. Normative Power Europe), to instead posit the Union within the broader international development context, and consider the range of external influences that this entails. External theoretical debates, for example, have shaped and defined the context within which development actors, including the European Union, operate, in many ways establishing the parameters of (internal and external) policy debates. Similarly, institutions of global governance – including inter alia the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organisation – have contributed to the shaping of policy responses around issues of development. This external context, therefore, constitutes a key component in our understanding of the European Union as a development actor.

The module is innovative in its approach, seeking to move beyond generalisations about the sui generis nature of the European Union, to instead situate it in the same context in which its counterpart actors operate. In so doing, it explicitly links the disciplines of European Union Studies and Development Studies, thus also providing students with an introduction to the study of international development.

Organisationally, the course is structured to maximise flexibility. While the early part of the course will rely on more traditional face-to-face teaching methods, these will give way in the second part to use of a more ‘virtual’ toolbox, allowing students to a great extent to work to their own timetable.

Learning Outcomes

  • Students who pass this course should be able to:
  • Describe the origins and history of the European Union as an international actor;
  • Understand the architecture of EU engagement with the developing world;
  • Understand the broader theoretical and empirical context of international development within which EU development policy is situated;
  • Explain the way in which the theoretical and empirical context has shaped and framed EU policy and practice.

    Students will require the facility to record and upload video content.
    • University Graduate Attributes

      This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:

      Globally aware

      Students will comprehend the influence of global conditions on their discipline and will be competent in engaging with global and multi-cultural contexts.

Prerequisites

Either 15 points of EURA or EURO at 200 level with a B pass; or 30 points of EURA or  EURO at 200-level; or any 45 points from the Arts Schedule.

Restrictions

EURO 330 in 2012

Timetable Note

Additional tutorial/forum (online) every Monday 10:00-12:00 from 18 November 2019 to 7 February 2020.

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Mathew Doidge

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Class test 30% Online open book essay-based test
Presentation 15%
Essay 02 Feb 2020 35% 2,500 words
Online forum 20% Participation in the online forum

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

Holland, Martin,1954- , Doidge, Mathew; Development policy of the European Union ; [1st ed.]; Palgrave Macmillan, 2012 (Can be borrowed from the High Demand section in the Library).

This course will set a number of readings from a range of sources. All readings will be available either through the Learn site or the University library.

Course links

Library portal
LEARN The full Course Outline is available on LEARN (only for students enrolled in this course).

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,523.00

International fee $6,375.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .

All EURA330 Occurrences

  • EURA330-19SU2 (C) Summer Nov 2019 start
  • EURA330-19SU2 (D) Summer Nov 2019 start (Distance)