European Studies

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on research problems in a wide series of topics drawn from migration history, history of ideas and their circulation, material exchange and consumption patterns, global labor history, social protests, transnational mobilizations processes, power forms and resistance strategies. Through direct contact with specific research paths, students are able to apply research techniques and methodologies and to use sources and literature in a critical manner. The first part of the course focuses on theoretical and methodological aspects concerning a world-historical approach to European contemporary history: how to study Europe and contemporary European history with reference to analytical frames drawing on World history. The second part of the courses focuses on European migration history from a global perspective. Particular attention is devoted to different forms of migration in relation to the social and political impact exerted on the societies involved. The topic is presented through case studies of anarchist migration between the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century that students are asked to present in class. The third and last part of the course focuses on decolonization, related social conflicts/movements and its impact on the European political sphere from the 1960s until the 1980s. How antiimperialist and anticolonial criticism addressed Europe and how European left-wing groups and parties reacted to the rising challenges. This topic is illustrated and discussed through case studies presented by the students. Readings are presented either individually or in small groups of students on a weekly basis accordingly to the syllabus.

The course is divided into three sections. The first section starts with a focus on European Foreign Policy for foreign policy analysis and vice versa. It considers what theories in International Relations can help explain the conduct of European Foreign Policy. Next, the institutional framework of the EU’s foreign policy and the role of the member states in the formation of policy are considered. Finally, main external relations policies themselves are reviewed in detail. Main policy areas include: Common Defense Policy, Common Security Policy, Economic and Trade Policy, and Enlargement Policy. 

The course equips students with a critical understanding of the major issues facing the European economy. The course provides a blend of descriptive information, theory, and empirical analysis. The emphasis is on economic issues but these issues are studied in their political, institutional, and historical context. Theoretical analysis forms an essential part of the course and requires knowledge of intermediate micro- and macroeconomics. Attention is devoted to some policy areas in which EU co-ordination has progressed furthest: internal market, regional policy, factor mobility, agriculture, and competition policy. The course is suitable for any student who has taken Economics and all Visiting Students who have acquired an equivalent level of Economics training.

This course is an examination of the Western Balkans' path to the European Union, with an emphasis on the post-1989 developments. It looks at the course content through political, economic, historical, and international perspectives. Over the semester the focus is on the ever-developing relationship between the EU and the Western Balkans, EU approaches towards integration, conditionality mechanisms, and individual paths of the seven new republics created after the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Topics include: Balkans in Europe; the Dissolution of Yugoslavia and its Consequences; EU conditionality and the accession mechanisms; state-building, democratization, Europeanisation, and transformation of the Balkans.

The course provides an overview of modern health challenges in Europe and how they are shaped by a variety of themes within stakeholders in policy, research, and practice. Such themes include developing a unified system of population health monitoring across sovereign countries; coping with population aging and rising healthcare expenditures; managing commercial and social determinants of health; supporting cross-border collaboration between national health systems; fostering learning and the exchange of expertise in social and health policy; and identifying a global role for European Public Health. The current course combines theory with practice through lectures, tutorials, and a masterclass. Lectures introduce the content and initiate discussions on topics covered by the course. In addition, the course makes use of problem-based learning (PBL), a prominent learning method widely used at Maastricht University, in which students actively engage in their own learning. Finally, the course includes an exchange of views in the form of a masterclass with a senior expert in European health policy. To facilitate a fruitful learning environment a moderate level of health-related knowledge is required. Hence, the course is directed toward students attending bachelor or master's courses in medicine, public health science, sociology, anthropology, political science, or economics.

This course explores key features of "modern" European societies and the nature of modernity. Students explore ways historians make sense of change over time by looking more closely at various aspects of everyday life, including consumption, social identity, labor, power, gender, race, protest, violence, religion and ideology, the body, nationalism, empire, crime, and social control.

Power of great empires was always based on their economy. Sustainable economic growth is therefore crucial for keeping the political influence as well as for ensuring the prosperity for its inhabitants. Economic power and prosperity of the past empires were often threatened by similar economic policy failures as we know today: fiscal crises, inflation, extensive regulation, or institutional mismanagement. Course lectures provide an overview of the economic policy and institutional failures that led to economic decay of the selected past European powers. Lessons from history are compared with the current situation in Central Europe. Students widen and apply acquired knowledge to current economic issues. This course combines application of basic Institutional Economics and International Political Economy.

This course examines the European Union (EU) from a variety of perspectives derived from major theories/concepts of international relations and comparative politics. It considers the EU as a key reference point in the foreign/security/defense policies of EU member states, as a major center of gravity in Europe's regional neighborhood, and as an important global actor. The course also considers the EU's relations with competing actors, particularly the U.S., NATO, Russia, and China, as well as its role as a model for other experiments in regional integration.