Informations du cours

This seminar examines the relationship between “levels of analysis” in political science, namely the interaction between domestic and international politics. It does so in two sequences: we first study some of the most important cases in which the domestic level influences the way in which international politics plays out. Such cases include the debate on the “Democratic Peace”, the domestic sources of American foreign policy and the dominant explanations of European integration, focusing on how domestic actors in the European Union’s member states are the source of the integration process. In a second sequence, we examine important cases in which developments at the international level shape the way in which domestic politics plays out. Such cases include the realist interpretation of European integration as the result of global power politics, the way in which deepening international economic integration affects political development and the welfare state at the level of individual governments and the way in which the same phenomenon has triggered a “populist” backlash at the level of mass politics in individual states.

Each week (except the first and last), students are assigned readings to prepare a discussion in class. The readings are mandatory: the seminar operates on the basis of a collective discussion that presupposes that all students have read the articles. Participation in the discussion also carries a weight in the overall evaluation for the course.