Content

This course analyses the processes of European (dis-)integration in the context of both the continent’s turbulent history and international relations since World War II. It examines how, why and to what extent, European countries cooperated, integrated and competed between 1945 and today. More broadly, it examines the different ways in which “Europe” has been defined culturally, geographically and politically over the course of the twentieth century, and the different factors that have contributed to—or hindered—the project for a “united” Europe: national and global politics; economic interests and crises; social movements and class struggle.

From a chronological perspective, the course charts how the rampant nationalism and destruction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries paved the way for increased cooperation in the wake of the Second World War and partnerships between historical rivals. It studies the construction of a new European order that reflected the continent’s position during the Cold War, and its relations with external actors (both states and international institutions). As such, two areas of particular focus will be: the interrelationship between East-West relations and European integration; and the major turning points and structural changes and problems in the course of European history since 1945. By continuously drawing a link between events and developments in the previous decades and current events and developments, the course aims to illuminate and explain recurrent themes and underlying challenges in the building of the European Union.        

Course material

Main Textbook (available on LIMO):

Desmond DINAN, Europe Recast. A History of European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Additional texts available on Toledo.

Format: more information

1. Introduction: Geopolitical Perspectives of Europe

2. Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century: Empires and Nation States (1789-1914)

3. After Versailles: European Disintegration (1919-1945)

4. The East-West Division: Europe and the Start of the Cold War (1945-1950)

5. Success and Failure: Early Integration Efforts (1950-1955)

6. The European Community and the Decade of De Gaulle (1955-1968)

7. Euro-optimism versus Economic Crisis: Tensions between Member States (1968-1978)

8. A Slow Revival and a Cold War Reawakening (1978-1985)

9. Towards a European Union (1985-1991)

10. Wider and Deeper? New Challenges for the Union (1991-2010)

Is also included in other courses

• C0Q09A : International Relations and European Law and Policy