This course provides students with in-depth knowledge and an insider’s insights into the actual politics of welfare policy-making at the supranational level. Students will observe European institutions, organizations, decision-making procedures, and actors “at work”, when they produce policy outputs, act (or function) within the arenas of the EU’s political structure, and interact with one another. They will gain an understanding of the relationship between the various formal institutional setups that exist at the supranational levels and the actual political dynamics taking place within these frameworks. The course addresses issues of political feasibility, considerations of the “political cost” of alternative courses of action, possible contradictions between a member-state logic of a policy proposal and its EU-level political rationale.

Introductory lectures during Intensive Programme, afterwards the course will continue in Moodle.

Only for the students of COSOPO Master's programme.