from 11/23/25 till 12/7/25
We begin our two-part exploration of the European Union. The European Union has no equal in the international system. Intergovernmental global regional organizations abound – the United Nations is one, NATO another. They are composed of sovereign territorial states that operate and vote entirely in accordance with their national interests. The EU is unlike them in that it is not an "intergovernmental" arrangement among Member States alone. “Europe” as a political territorial entity is “supranational” – it operates “above” the Member States in its own governance terrain. “Europe” has its own ontology, its own agenda, and governs through institutions that legislate, regulate, adjudicate, and create financial policies across a continent.
PART I: We examine how European integration emerged from a long, often violent history. The European Union we know today - complex, highly structured, and occasionally fractious - did not arise from a single decision. It evolved from centuries of geopolitical conflict and the hard lessons learned from devastating wars. Understanding the historical journey is essential because the EU is more than an economic arrangement or a political convenience. It is a PEACE project. It is a profound attempt to reshape the European state system itself and rethink what stability, peace, and prosperity could mean after centuries of rivalry.
PART II: In this second exploration of European integration, we shift from history to the structure of European governance. The EU’s institutions emerged from the treaty framework established between 1951 and 2007, beginning with the European Coal and Steel Community and culminating in today’s post-Lisbon structure.
This treaty evolution produced a system that is neither a federal state nor a classic international organization. It occupies a conceptual middle ground: a hybrid of shared sovereignty, in which member states retain important powers while agreeing to pool others for the collective benefit. It is precisely this pooling that created a new political phenomenon, a form of regional governance unprecedented in world history. To function, such a system needs institutions—some representing national governments, others representing European citizens, and still others representing the collective interest of the Union as a whole. That is the institutional architecture we turn to now.
| The European Union. A Very Brief Introduction Please read the entire book in the two-weeks of Module II. Use this excerpt until you obtain your own copy from AMAZON or any other perveyor. | ||
| MODULE II_Lecture - Part I_European integration_History & geopolitics of the EU PART I: European integration, which began officially in 1951, didn’t just benefit from a long peace after the end of the Second World War; it helped generate peace. The best way we can describe the “European Project” is that at its core, it is a peace project. As a tie-in to Module I, one can add that it is also a “human security” project. In the first of a two-part exploration of the European Union, we examine how European integration emerged from a long, often violent history. The European Union we know today—complex, highly structured, and occasionally fractious—did not arise from a single decision. It evolved from centuries of geopolitical conflict and the hard lessons learned from devastating wars. Understanding the historical journey is essential because the EU is a profound attempt to reshape the European state system itself and rethink what stability, peace, and prosperity could mean after centuries of rivalry. |
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| MODULE II_Lecture - Part II_EU institutions and governance To function, the intergovernmental and supranational EU needs institutions, some representing national governments, others representing European citizens, and still others representing the collective interest of the Union as a whole. Supranational institutions are mandated to represent Europe’s collective interests and operate independently of national governments. Intergovernmental institutions, by contrast, represent the sovereign governments of the member states. The interaction between these two logics—European interest and national interest—is at the heart of EU decision-making. The EU thrives because neither side dominates. |
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| Exercise: Schuman Declaration - 9 May 1950 The Schuman Declaration is the conceptual hinge of the early European project. Our aim in this exercise is to extract its themes read it forensically—as a geopolitical intervention in 1950, as a constitutional blueprint for integration, and as a rhetorical strategy designed to make particular futures possible and others impossible. Your task is to unpack the Declaration into its core analytical units: problems, diagnoses, proposed mechanisms, and integration logics. By the end of this exercise, you should be able to articulate how the Declaration encodes a specific trajectory for Europe’s institutional and political consolidation. | ||
| The Schuman Declaration - 1950_Full text | ||
| Exercise: Schuman Declaration - Annotated | ||
| Exercise: Schuman Declaration_Leading questions |
