This course analyses the relationship between nationalism and European integration from the end of the Great War up to the present day.  It will move students’ understandings of the relationship between nationalism and European integration beyond that of a European identity transcending national ones to a clearer understanding of the causal relationships that contribute to both nationalism and integration in contemporary Europe.

Three broad propositions will be interrogated in this course:

1. That the early promoters of European integration were genuinely motivated by a desire to overcome nationalism;
2. The subsequent path of European integration has also generated new forms of nationalism, principally in the guise of Euroscepticism;
3. That in seeking to counter Eurosceptic criticisms, contemporary proponents of European integration have begun to deploy legitimising narratives which make them sound like the very nationalisms that their forebears sought to transcend.

At the conclusion of this course students will be able to:

1.  Recount the history of European integration since 1919;

2.  Relate that history to the politics of nationalism and populism since 1919;

3.  Comprehend the political and historical dynamics that have contributed to politics within the EU today;

4.  Analyse the importance of sovereignty, democracy and nationalism in contemporary Europe.

One first draft essay (1500 words) (30%) (LO 2 & 3);

One final draft essay (2500 words) (45%) (LO 2 & 3);

One final assessment of 1000 words (25%) (LO 1 & 4).

The workload for this course is comprises a total of 120 hours spread over 12 weeks of teaching.  The contact hours are structures around two hours of lectures per week, one-hour research essay workshops (aka tutorials) for 6 weeks and tutorials for 6 weeks.

Two first year politics and/or history courses.

Incompatible with EURO2011.

A knoweldge of post-War European history and a basic understanding of politics (i.e. POLS1002).

Dinan, Desmond. Europe Recast. A History of European Union. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

N/A