Spring, 2026

Political Development of the European Union

Professor: JeongHun Han

Schedule: Monday 14:00 – 17:00

Class Room: 202 ho, 140-1 dong

Contact Info: gurus72@snu.ac.kr

<Aims of Course>

This course aims to introduce the historical development of democracy in the European Union. To this end, the course is structured into three main parts. The first part provides an overview of the European Union’s political institutions, the relationships among them, and the debate on the EU’s democratic deficit in policymaking. The second part focuses on the European Parliament, examining its historical development and political competition within the Parliament. The third part analyzes actual roll-call voting records of Members of the European Parliament in order to explore the primary targets and patterns of political representation within the European Parliament. In the final part of the course, students will learn the logistic model from a statistical perspective and apply it to the analysis of voting records.

<Evaluation Method>

Participation (10%) + Presentation (20%) + Q&A (20%) + Mid-term Exam (25%) + Final Report (25%)

<Rule of Class Attendance>

Students who are absent for over 1/3 of the class will receive a grade of 'F' or 'U' for the course. (Exceptions can be made when the cause of absence is deemed unavoidable by the course instructor)

<Regulation on AI Use>

Generative AI may be used as a supplementary learning tool in this course. Students may use generative AI to explore ideas or topics needed to complete assignments and to analyze data. However, if generative AI is used to complete an assignment, the name of the tool used, the process of its use, and the generated content must be clearly stated in the assignment.

<Course Schedule>

Week 1 (9 March): Introduction and Selection of Presenters

- Syllabus

Lecture Note: Introducing EU Legal System & Major Political Institutions

Week 2 (16 March): Inter-Institutional Relations and Legislative Procedures

Relations bt. EP and the Commission: Building Parliament, pp.184-185.

Interinstitutional Agreement: Building parliament, pp.193-203

Relations. bt. EP and the Council: Building Parliament, pp.208-212

Gabral, T. S. 2020. “A Short Guide to the Legislative Procedure in the European Union,” UNIO-EU Law Journal 6:161-180

Delegated and Implementing Act: Paul Craig (2018)

Legislative Control over delegated act: Yordanova and Zhelyazkova (2020)

Week 3 (23 March): Debate on Democratic Deficit

Parliament for Europe (D. Marquand 1979)

Moravcsik, Andrew. 2002. “In Defence of the ‘Democratic Deficiti’” Journal of Common Market Studies.

Scharpf, F. W. 1999. Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic? Introduction + Chapter 2 + Conclusion

Week 4 (30 March): Sources of Democratic Deficit

Jurgen Harbermas (2001, 2012) “Why Europe Needs a Consitution” In Constitutionalism and Democarcy. R. Bellamy (ed). Chapter 22.

Simon Hix (2008) “What’s Wrong with the European Union and How to Fix it”

Follesdal, Andreas and Simon Hix. 2006. “Why there is a democratic deficit in the EU: A Response to Majone and Moravcsik” JCMS 44(3):533-562

other reference

Joseph Weiler (1995) “Does Europe Need a Consitution?”

Kalypso Nicolaidis (2004) “The New Constitution as European Demoi-cracy”

Week 5 (6 April): Regaining Debates on Democratic Deficit

Murdoch et al. 2018. “Administrative legitimacy and the democratic deficit of the European Union” Journal of European Public Policy 25(3):389-408

Bang et al. “’We the People’ versus ‘We the head of States’: the debate on the democratic deficit of the European Union” Policy Studies 36(2):196-216

Kratochvil et al. 2019. “The end of democarcy in the EU? The Eurozone crisis and the EU’s democratic deficit” Journal of European Integration 4192):169-185 –

Week 6 (13 April): Historical Development of the European Parliament

- Direct Election: Building Parliament pp.33-44

Budgetary Powers: Building Parliament, pp.146-158

Composition of Groups: Building Parliament, pp.45-59

Legislative Powers of the EP: Building Parliament, pp.159-183

Lobbying the the EP: Building Parliament, pp. 92-98

other reference

- The European Parliament: Electoral Procedure. Fact Sheets on the European Union

- 1976 Act concerning the election of the representatives of the Assembly by direct universal suffrage

- 1993 Council Directive about the EP election rules

- 2002 Council decision amending the 1976 Act

- 2012 EP Resolution on the 2014 EP elections

- 2012 Council Directive amending 1993 Directive

- 2014 Regulation: Statute and funding of European political parties

- 2015 EP Resolution on the reform of the electoral law

- 2017 EP Resolution on the EPG funding

- 2018 Council decision amending the 1976 Act

- 2018 EP Decision: Relations between EP and Commission

- 2018 Regulation: amending 2014 regulation on the statute and funding of European political parties

- 2019 Regulation_ personal data at EP elections

- 2020 Resolution _ stocktaking of European elections

- TEU article 14; TFEU article 20, 22 and 223; Charter of Fundamental Rights article 39

Week 7 (20 April) Mid-term Exam

Week 8 (27 April): EP’s Legislative Power

- Guerrieri (2008) “The start of European integration and the parliamentary dimension: the common assembly of the ECSC (1952-1958)” Parliament, Estates & Representation 28(1)

- Kreppel, Armie. 2018. “Bicameralism and the Balance of Power in EU Legislative Politics,: Journal of Legislative Studies 24(1):11-33

- Crombez, C. B. 1997. “The Codecision Procedure in the European Union” Legislative Studies Quarterly 22:97-119.

other reference

- Lord, Christopher. 2018. “The European Parliament: A Working Parliament Without a Public?” Journal of Legislative Studies 24(1):34-50

Crombez (1996) “Legislative Procedure in the European Community” British Journal of Political Science 26(2):199-228.

Week 9 (4 May): Intrainstitutional Development of the EP

- Committee Assignment: Yordanova (2009)

- Empowerment of political groups and committee: Hix and Hoyland (2013)

- Delegation of Committee Report: Chiou et al. (2019).

Week 10 (11 May): Political Contestation within the EP

- Rapporteur appointment: Yoshinaka et al. (2010)

- Group affiliation: McElroy and Benoit (2010)

- Radical Right Populism in the EP: Kantola and Miller (2021)

Week 11 (18 May): CBAM Regulation and its Amendments

Lecture Note

Week 12 (25 May) National Holiday – Home Assignment (Describing MEPs’ Voting Records with respect to their Committee, Party Group and State Affiliation and its Interpretation)

Week 13 (1 June): Logistic Model Practice

Lecture Note

Week 14 (8 June): Logistic Model Practice with CBAM Amendments

Lecture Note

Week 15 (15 June): Final Report – Applying Logistic Model to MEPs’ roll call votes over Texanomy Regulation and Report both descriptive statistics and statistical inference