European Foreign Policy

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This seminar focuses on the development of the EU polity and its external policies and the interaction with the broader processes of global governance and globalisation. It does so by first conceptualising the linkages discussed above through the lenses of international relations, political science, history, and sociology. It then goes on to look at a variety of issues, such as the interaction between European integration on the one hand and the problems of global security, global trade, global development, and global migration on the other. In the research workshop that is integrated in the seminar students will do empirical research on a question relating to the external relations of the European Union and combine their empirical findings with theoretical insights gained during the seminars. Students are expected to apply either qualitative or quantitative research methods, which are taught in the methodology track. Hence the workshop is open two types of research questions: first, those questions that are focused on specific instances of EU external relations that can be researched in case studies with process-tracing methods, such as the role of the European Parliament in the EU’s external relations or the evolution of the European External Action Service; or, second, on questions that aim to understand the systematic conditions that contextualize EU external action, for example in the field of humanitarian missions or international sanctions, which can be investigated in a cross-case manner.