Academic Catalog

IR590 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONIS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Course Code: 3140590
METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): 3(3-0)
ECTS Credit: 8.0
Department: International Relations
Language of Instruction: English
Level of Study: Graduate
Course Coordinator: Assoc.Prof.Dr. SEVÝLAY KAHRAMAN
Offered Semester: Spring Semesters.

Course Content

Since the 1990s, there has been a steady expansion of the practical and scholarly interest in the international role of the EC/EU both as a partner to other major actors in world affairs and as an actor in its own right. The objective of this course is to give a broad introduction to ideas and issues related to the EU´s international role and identity in a globalizing world. The course commenses with a conceptual and theoretical analysis of the international presence and actorness of the EU. Next, it overviews the legal bases and the institutional framework of EC/EU´s external relations and outlines various attempts to further develop EU´s foreign and security policy, beginning with European Political Cooperation, culminating in the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the recent transition into Common European Security and Defense Policy. Against this theoretical and historical background, the course asseses the Union´s relations with its peripheries to the east, south, and with the rest of the world. Finally, by way of conclusion, the challanges facing the EU foreign and security policy and the future of these policies are examined in an enlarging and unifying Europe.