4.0

credits

Average Course Rating

The European Union is experiencing an unprecedented crisis. Moreover, the epicenter of that crisis is in Western Europe. The recent vote by the British people to leave the European Union is one illustration; the challenges facing Italy are another. Even France and Germany, the partner-countries that provide the historic engine for European integration, are in difficulty. And the implications threaten the whole of the European project. The purpose of this course is to explain why that is the case. In doing so, we take advantage of the fact that SAIS exists on both sides of the Atlantic – bringing together students in Washington and Bologna to explore how Europe was meant to rescue the national state and what has brought European integration to its current impasse. Students who enroll in the course should come away with an understanding both of the internal workings of the main countries of Western Europe and the dynamics that affect the continent as a whole. In that sense, the course provides much that is relevant to the European and Eurasian Studies comprehensive examination in comparative political economy. The course also complements instruction provided on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and in European Financial Markets. Familiarity with the political economy of European integration (and the institutions of the European Union) would be an advantage but is not a prerequisite. Students who have followed ‘West European Political Economies’ in Bologna should not take this course for credit. <a href="http://bit.ly/1bebp5s" target="_blank">Click here to see evaluations, syllabi, and faculty bios</a>