1. Students will be required to attend classes regularly, read assigned readings and be active in discussions - this activity will constitute 10 points of the final grade.
2. Paper I: each student will be required to hand in a commented, AI-generatedop-ed, which will debate any issue related to (contemporary) transatlantic relations. Each student will create a prompt and provide an analysis (1000 – 1200 words; excluding the AI-generated text) of the text generated by the AI-model. The analysis will entail the assessment of the text’s relevance, factual precision and plausibility. The activity will constitute 20 points of the final grade. The op-ed will be due on 20. 3. 2024. Examples of prompts:
“Write an op-ed about the problems of Transatlantic trade in beef”
“Write an 800-word op-ed about the challenges of data privacy between the US and the EU”
3. Paper II: each student will hand in a reaction paper to one of the required readings (1200 - 1500 words). The activity will constitute 20 points of the final grade. The reaction paper will be due on 15.4.2024.
3. Final test: Students will answer open-ended questions based on the mandatory readings. The activity will constitute 50 points of the final grade.
(A) Any use of quoted texts, including AI-generated phrases, in submitted papers must be acknowledged. Such use must meet the following conditions:
the beginning and end of the quoted passage must be shown with quotation marks
when quoting from periodicals or books, the name(s) of author(s), book or article titles, the year of publication, and page from which the passage is quoted must all be stated in footnotes or endnotes;
when using AI-generated text, the reference needs to contain the exact prompt, date of prompt and name of AI model that generated the text
internet sourcing must include a full web address where the text can be found as well as the date the web page was visited by the author.
It is recommended to use the style of Chicago Manual of Style.
(B) In case the use of any texts other than those written by the author is established without proper acknowledgment as defined in (A), the paper will be deemed plagiarized and handed over to the Disciplinary Commission of the Faculty of Social Sciences.
1. Course introduction and requirements (19.2.2024)
2. Searching for narratives: Debates about the American and European identities (26.2.2024)
Discussion:
Huntington, Samuel P., Who are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004). Chapter 3 – “Components of American Identity”.
Diez, Thomas, "Europe’s Others and the Return of Geopolitics," Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17 (2), 2004: 319–335.
Optional:
Smith, Anthony D. "National Identity and the Idea of European Unity," International Affairs 68 (1), 1992: 55-76.
Bottici, Chiara and Benoit Challand, Imagining Europe: Myth, Memory, and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Chapter 4 - "Myths of Europe".
Green, David Michael, The Europeans: Political Identity in an Emerging Polity (Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007). Chapters 2 and 7 - "The Idea of European Identity" and "Conclusion: European Identity and its Context".
Bloc II: Organizing territory – The United States vs. the United States of Europe
3. Building a federation (4.3.2024)
Discussion:
Deudney, Daniel H., “The Philadelphian system: sovereignty, arms control, and balance of power in the American states-union, circa 1787–1861,” International Organization 49 (2), 1995, 191-228.
Optional:
Lundestad, Geir, "Empire" by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945-1997 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 1-28.
Hendrickson, David C., Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003), pp. 3-32.
4. Regionalism in the US (11.3.2024)
Discussion:
Woodard, Colin, American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good (New York: Viking, 2016). Chapter 3 – “Rival Americas”.
Optional:
Harrington, Jesse R. andMichele J.Gelfand, "Tightness–looseness across the 50 united states", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences111 (22), 2014: 7990-7995.
Bloc III: Organizing society – Dialogues over solidarity, equality and liberalism
5. Conceptualizing solidarity (18.3.2024)
Discussion:
Jacobs, Lawrence and Theda Skocpol, Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Chapter 1 - "Why Now? Broken Health Care and an Opportunity for Change".
Optional:
Foner, Eric, Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002). Chapter 6 - "Why is there no socialism".
6. “In Europe, we don’t do God”: The Role of Religion in Society and Politics (25.3.2024)
Discussion:
Kopstein, Jeffrey and Sven Steinmo (eds.), Growing Apart? America and Europe in the 21st Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Chapter 1 - "The Religious Divide: Why Religion Seems to Be Thriving in the United States and Waning in Europe" by Steven Pfaff.
Optional:
Phillips, Kevin, "Church, State, and National Decline" in American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 218-262.
Gonzalez, Michelle A., "Religion and the US Presidency: Politics, the Media, and Religious Identity," Political Theology 13 (5), 2012: 568–585.
7. Easter Monday - No class (1.4.2024)
8. Fighting the government, the elites or foreigners? Convergence of American and European Populisms (8.4.2024)
Discussion:
Bonikowski, Bart, "Three Lessons of Contemporary Populism in Europe and the United States", Brown Journal of World Affairs 23 (1), 2016: 9-24.
Samuels, Robert, “(Liberal) Narcissism” in Routledge Handbook of Psychoanalytic Political Theory (New York: Routledge, 2019), pp. 151-161.
Optional:
Judis, John B., The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (New York: Colombia Global Reports, 2016), 12-61,89-108 and 131-163.
Berlet, Chip and Spencer Sunshine, “Rural rage: the roots of rightwing populism in the United States”, The Journal of Peasant Studies 46 (3), 2019: 480-513.
Wodak, Ruth, "The ‘Establishment’, the ‘Élites’, and the ‘People’: Who’s Who?" Journal of Language & Politics 16 (4), 2017: 551–65.
Bloc IV: Organizing the economy – Welfare states and Neoliberalism
9. Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome (15.4.2024)
Discussion:
Verba, Sidney, and Gary R. Orren, “The Meaning of Equality in America”, Political Science Quarterly 100 (3), 1985: 369-387.
Optional:
Kingston, Paul W. and Laura M. Holian, "Inequality" in Alberto Martinelli (ed.), Transatlantic Divide: Comparing American and European Society (oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
10. Ideology, politics and identity in the economy(22.4.2024)
Discussion:
Kopstein, Jeffrey and Sven Steinmo (eds.), Growing Apart? America and Europe in the 21st Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Chapter 4 - "One Ring to Bind Them All: American Power and Neoliberal Capitalism" by Mark Blyth.
Optional:
Alesina, Alberto and Edward Glaeser, "Why are welfare states in the US and Europe so different: What do we learn?" Horizons stratégiques 2 (2), 2006: 51-61.
Alber, Jens, "What the European and American Welfare States Have in Common and Where They Differ: Facts and Fiction in Comparisons of the European Social Model and the United States," Journal of European Social Policy 20 (2), 2010: 102–125.
Kousser, Thad, "How America's 'Devolution Revolution' Reshaped Its Federalism", Revue Francaise de Science Politique 64 (2), 2014: 65-83.
Bloc V: Ensuring security – Dealing with differing threat perceptions
11. Divergent threat and security perceptions across the Atlantic (29.4.2024)
Discussion:
Hampton, Mary N., A Thorn in Transatlantic Relations: American and European Perceptions of Threat and Security (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 1-22.
Optional:
Sarotte, Mary Elise, "Transatlantic Tension and Threat Perception," Naval War College Review 58 (4), 2005: 25–37.
12. Are “Americans from Mars and Europeans from Venus”? Civilian power Europe vs. military power US (6.5.2024)
Discussion:
Briggs, William, How America Got Its Guns: A History of the Gun Violence Crisis (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017). Chapters 1 and 2 – “Guns in America” and “The Advantage of Being Armed”.
13. Anti-Americanism and Anti-Europeanism and Transatlantic “Othering”(13.5.2024)
Discussion:
Markovits, Andrei S., Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). Chapter 1 - "Anti-Americanism as a European Lingua Franca".
Optional:
Ash, Timothy Garton, "Anti-Europeanism in America", The New York Review of Books, February 2003.
Woodward, C. Vann, The Old World’s New World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Chapter 6 – “Tantalus Americanus”.
Patrick Chamorel, "Anti-Europeanism and Euroscepticism in the United States", EUI Working Papers 25, 2004.
NOTE: All texts available in this syllabus are for study purposes of this course only. They are protected by copyright and must not be further distributed.
