Subjects

Your browser does not support JavaScript, or its support is disabled. Some features may not be available.

Party Democracy in the EU: crisis and consequences - JTM733

Title:	Party Democracy in the EU: crisis and consequences
Czech title:	Demokracie politických stran v EU: krize a její důsledky
Guaranteed by:	Department of European Studies (23-KZS)
Faculty:	Faculty of Social Sciences
Actual:	from 2024
Semester:	summer
E-Credits:	6
Examination process:	summer s.:
Hours per week, examination:	summer s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
Capacity:	20 / unknown (20)
Min. number of students:	5
4EU+:	yes
Virtual mobility / capacity:	no
State of the course:	taught
Language:	English
Teaching methods:	full-time
Note:	course can be enrolled in outside the study plan enabled for web enrollment priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan

Guarantor:	Emilija Tudjarovska Gjorgjievska, Ph.D.
Teacher(s):	Emilija Tudjarovska Gjorgjievska, Ph.D.
Class:	Courses for incoming students

Examination dates SS schedule Noticeboard

Syllabus

Party Democracy in the EU: crisis and consequences

Voluntary course/Erasmus/ BA, MA, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University

Scope of instruction: 1/1 (lectures/seminars)

Credits available: 6 credits

Course number: JTM733 Spring Term 2024/2025

Time and place: C321 15:30-16:50 (tbc)

Lectures and Seminars:

Head of Lectures and Seminar classes:

Dr. Emilija Tudzarovska: emilija.tudjarovska@fsv.cuni.cz/emilija.tudjarovska@soc.cas.cz

Office hours: Tuesday 13:00-14:00;

Consultations in person or online to be booked beforehand via e-mail.

Seminar class language of instruction is English.

Goals

The aim of this course is to improve the knowledge of students on the symptoms of the crisis of party democracy in the EU, its causes and consequences. The purpose is to understand: a) The key challenges to the EU in the twenty-first century: populism, technocracy, anti-system politics, emergency politics etc.; b) The comparative perspectives of the crises in Western and Eastern societies c) The theoretical approaches for studying the crises of party democracy and its implications for the democratic representation in EU and the EU democratic legitimacy.

Main Objectives:

The course will introduce students to the key approaches on the EU and its key challenges in contemporary context: the rise of populism in the EU decision-making processes; the role of the political parties and party democracy for the EU integration process, normative and empirical perspective. Preparatory readings will include combine readings on the EU and democratic theories, political science, political economy etc. This course is designed to help the students to acquire knowledge about the causes and consequences of the crisis of party democracy in the EU and to understand its implications on the contemporary way of doing politics. (rise of populism, technocratic governance, democratic backsliding, anti-system politics crisis of democratic legitimacy, democratic deficit, etc.) It will also offers to examine the comparative perspectives of studying the crisis of party democracy in the EU, in Western and Eastern societies.

After completion of this course, students should be able to:

- Understand the causes and consequences of the crisis of democratic representation in the EU, the role of the political parties for studying the EU;

- Understand how to apply normative approaches of studying the crises of democratic representation in empirical cases and learn how to analyse the contemporary challenges of the EU (populism, populist leaders and populist parties, technocratic governance, anti-system politics etc.)

- Learn how to make theoretical observations in studying the key challenges in the EU and how to combine them with empirical data and analysis;

- Engage in critical thinking on the contemporary EU affairs, i.e. engagement with contemporary scholarly discussion on the EU/global affairs/testing or building theories;

Conditions for passing:

Students shall be admitted to the written examination for this course (in English) if they have been sufficiently graded for their performance in lectures and seminars, and if they have elaborated and submitted a final written assignment (in English) on an agreed topic. The course will be a combination of lectures and students’ presentations on selected case studies. Students will be expected to know the prescribed reading thoroughly when coming to the class. The case studies will trace the theoretical implications on practical examples of EU’s politics. The normative dimension of the EU integration will be analysed and discussed during the classes.

Students have the following obligations:

1) Present in the class (team presentation; 15-20 minutes) and submit the presentation in a limited written form (up to 2 pages handout or a PowerPoint presentation) (30 pts) for the list of presentation topics and teams see below in the syllabus;

Evaluation criteria: factually correct (5 pts); key aspects of the topic captured (5 pts); a clear message supported by arguments (10 pts); formally OK (5 pts); keeping the time frame (5 pts).

2) Submit a final paper (2,500 words) on an assigned topic (60 pts). The topic of the final paper is to be selected from the list of topics (see below in the syllabus). The final exam will take the format of a written essay – critical review. The essays should be based on the lectures/seminars, and your capacity to demonstrate knowledge of the course material. The selection needs to be sent to the lecturer via email by 4 December 2024.

Evaluation criteria: see below in the syllabus and the table

Deadline: 31 May, 2025 at 11 pm (upload the paper in pdf format in Moodle; registration key: “xx”). For every hour past the deadline, one point will be deducted from the final paper score.

3) Participate in the discussion in the seminar (10 pts)

4) Attend the seminars

Students can miss one class without prior justification and one additional class with relevant justification (illness, serious personal reasons, attendance of extraordinary event related to the study programme). A higher number of missed classes can be the reason for failing the course, lower grade or additional course work.

Table 1: Final grading shall be based on the following formula (provided the student earns at least the minimum number of points for each particular item)

Final point score	Grade
91 or more	A	Excellent (výtečně)
81–90	B	Very Good (velmi dobře)
71–80	C	Good (dobře)
61–70	D	Satisfactorily (uspokojivě)
51–60	E	Sufficiently (dostatečně)
50 or less	F	Fail (nedostatečně)

N. B.:

- Sources shall be credited in line with the latest version of the ISO 690 standard. No form of plagiarism is tolerated at the Charles University. Any instances of plagiarism shall be discussed by the Disciplinary Board and, eventually, the Dean.

Day	Room	Content
17 Feb	tbc	Session #1 Introduction to the course, lectures and seminars. Why is the EU? What is Party Democracy? What is Populism? • Lord, C. ed. (2015). A different kind of democracy? Debates about democracy and the European Union; Open Society Foundations. • Müller, Jan-Werner (2017). What is Populism? Polity Press
24 Feb	tbc	Session #2 Technocracy and crisis of democratic representation in the EU: · Caramani, D. (2017). Will vs. reason: The populist and technocratic forms of political representation and their critique to party government. American Political Science Review. 111(1): 54–67.
3 March	tbc	Session #3 Crisis of democratic representation in the EU: causes • Mair, Peter Ruling the Void. (2022). The Hollowing of Western Democracy. Verso • Bickerton, C. (2009). From Brezhnev to Brussels: Transformations of sovereignty in Eastern Europe. International Politics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/ip.2009.20
10 March	tbc	Session #4 Group work: identification of the causes of crises of representative democracies in the EU Schmidt, A. V. (2020). Europe's Crisis of Legitimacy, Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone (384 pp)/selected chapters; · Scharprf, Fritz, W. (2009). Legitimacy in the multilevel European polity European Political Science Review (2009), 1:2, 173–204
17 March	tbc	Session #5 Crisis of democratic representation in the EU: consequences (populism, technopopulism, populist leaders) • Buštíková, L. and Guasti. P. (2019). The State as a Firm: Understanding the Autocratic Roots of Technocratic Populism. East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 33:2, 302-330.
24 March	tbc	Session #6 · Group work: identification of the consequences of crises of representative democracies in the EU · Examples: The EU responds to crises (i.e. financial crisis; debt crisis, migration crisis, COVID-19).
31 March	tbc	Session #7 Presentations in the class: • Select a topic on the crisis of party democracy in the EU (causes/consequences) • Examples: populist leaders and democratic backsliding in different cases in the EU
7 April	tbc	Session #9 Emergency politics and crisis of representation in the EU? • White, Jonathan. (2019) Politics of Last Resort: Governing by Emergency in the European Union. Oxford University Press • Optional: White, Jonathan. (2024) On the Long run. Cambridge University Press (introduction and conclusion)
14 April	tbc	Session #8 Guest lecture: Prof. Visnja Vukov, University of Vienna (or Prof. Fabio Wolkenstein, University of Vienna) • EU politics and crisis of representation in Western and Eastern Societies: challenges and perspectives
21 April	tbc	Session #10 *Presentations in the class:* • *Select a topic on the EU emergency politics, populism, technocratic governance - analysing empirical cases.* • Explain why EU uses emergency politics in times of crisis and how this affect the democratic representation
28 April	tbc	Session #11 What is Anti-System Politics and what does this theory tell us about the contemporary challenges of the EU? • Hopkin, Jonathan (2020). Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies. Oxford University Press (selected chapters)
5 May	tbc	Session #12 *Wrap-up. Discussion of submitted drafts/preparation for the final written exam.*

Mandatory Readings:

· Caramani, D. (2017). Will vs. reason: The populist and technocratic forms of political representation and their critique to party government. American Political Science Review. 111(1): 54–67.

· Mair, Peter Ruling the Void. (2022). The Hollowing of Western Democracy. Verso

· Müller, Jan-Werner (2017). What is Populism? Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania

· Hopkin, Jonathan (2020). Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies. Oxford University Press

· Lord, C. ed. (2015). A different kind of democracy? Debates about democracy and the European Union; Open Society Foundations.

· Bickerton, C. (2009). From Brezhnev to Brussels: Transformations of sovereignty in Eastern Europe. International Politics

· Hooghe, Liesbet & Marks, Gary (2019). Grand theories of European integration in the twenty-first century, Journal of European Public Policy, 26:8, Link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2019.1569711

· Schmidt, A. V. (2020). Europe's Crisis of Legitimacy, Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone (384 pp)/selected chapters;

· Schmidt, A.V. (2010). Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited, Input, Output and Throughput. Frei University

· Scharprf, Fritz, W. (2009). Legitimacy in the multilevel European polity European Political Science Review (2009), 1:2, 173–204

· White, Jonathan. (2019) Politics of Last Resort: Governing by Emergency in the European Union. Oxford University Press

Additional literature:

· Buštíková, L. and Guasti. P. (2019). The State as a Firm: Understanding the Autocratic Roots of Technocratic Populism. East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures, 33:2, 302-330.

· Bickerton, C. (2022). After Euroscepticism. New Left Review. https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/after-euroscepticism

· Rupnik, Jacques. (2007). Is East-Central Europe Backsliding? From Democracy Fatigue to Populist Backlash. Journal of Democracy Volume 18, Number 4 October 2007

· Jones E., Menon, A., Weatherill, S., (2014). The Oxford Handbook of the European Union (924pp)/selected chapters;

· Vachudova, M.A. (2005). Europe Undivided Democracy, Leverage, and Integration: After Communism. Oxford University Press

· Tudzarovska, Emilija (2024). Disorganized Collective Citizens’ Interest, Social Transformations and Technopopulism. Palgrave Mc. Available at : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-54231-2_10

Final papers (critical essay)

Please provide clear structure of the text:

• Introduction,

• Theoretical Approach,

• Methodological Approach,

• Analysis and

• Conclusion.

All papers should have a clear research question, and answered in the conclusion. Keep the questions detailed and limited so that you manage to answer it within the short paper you are writing. Demonstrate knowledge of theories and theoretical application on empirical cases. Illustrate your arguments with concrete data and cases (use academic sources for your paper; newspaper articles can serve as primary sources for politicians’ statements or to illustrate timely reaction to an event or initiative, but cannot serve as the source of ideas, concepts, and analytical data. Please include list of references. The paper must not be a report, history, or review. It is an analytical piece that should both illuminate a precise problem and draw some larger conclusions. Please note that the papers must adhere to proper academic ethics and quoting used sources, including ideas and data. Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, is unacceptable, results in failing the course and may lead to disciplinary procedure and even expulsion according to the valid regulation.

Evaluation criteria:

• analysis (quality of argument, coherence, clear answer etc.) 15 points

• evidence (relevance, use of literature, adequacy, how handled etc.) 15 points

• originality (creativity, novelty, relevance for wider debate etc.) 10 points

• organisation (how well structured, flow of argument etc.) 10 points

• style (grammar, clarity, word choice, readability etc.) 5 points

• referencing (citations, coherence, list of references etc.) 5 points

Internet sources

European Union: http://www.europa.eu/

European Council: https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-council_en

European Commission: https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-commission_en

European Parliament : https://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en