Übung The European Parliament in English

Over the course of the past decades, the European Parliament has evolved from a mere advisory assembly into a powerful law-making body. This remarkable development has not only transformed the way the European Union operates in a fundamental way, but also generated interesting new research opportunities on different facets of the institution. How does the European Parliament differ from -ordinary” national parliaments and what are the implications for policy-making? How has the European Parliament been organizing its ever increasing workload? Are elections to the European Parliament distinct from other elections and if so, why? Do we observe particular patterns of voting behavior in the European Parliament? Focusing on those and other questions, this seminar evaluates the current state-of-the-art in research on the European Parliament. Based on a historical overview of the European Parliament´s institutional genesis, the seminar discusses diverse aspects of the institution which have generated considerable attention among scholars of European integration. Among others, those aspects include the EP´s committee system, elections, voting behavior, the allocation of important positions in the EP and the impact of enlargement rounds. In addition to those substantive contents, the seminar will also discuss the research designs of the assigned readings regarding methodological and theoretical issues. Corbett, R. G., Jacobs, F. & Shackleton, M. (2011). The European Parliament (8th edition). London: John Harper. Anmeldung Anmeldung zur Veranstaltung über Coremato von 01.04.2015 bis 07.04.2015 unter: http://www.gsi.uni-muenchen.de/studium/organisation/ole/index.html Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft LMU München SoSe 2015 Dr. Hurka Steffen