EXECUTIVE MSc IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EUROPE

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1 EXECUTIVE MSc IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EUROPE European Institute The London School of Economics and Political Science 1

2 CONTENTS The Executive MSc in the Political Economy of Europe 1 About the European Institute 2 Course guides session 2014/ Schedule for the Executive MSc in the Political Economy of Europe 5 Preliminary reading 6 Entry Requirements 7 2

3 THE EXECUTIVE MSc IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EUROPE The sovereign debt crisis of 2010, which is slowly transforming itself into a crisis of EMU, raises the spectre a four-speed Europe (the decidedly ins, the pre-outs, the never-ins and the always-outs). A new era of eurosclerosis dawns, which prepares the ground for a deep fragmentation of the continent. The unravelling of EMU heralds the collapse of the hardfought economic and political integration of the continent. That is one scenario. The other is a rapid political integration in response to the crisis of EMU, with member states pooling sovereignty in such areas as fiscal policy and banking regulations to match monetary union. And that, in turn, leads to the inevitable reorganisation of the political system in Europe to match the transfer of sovereignty. The Executive Masters degree in the Political Economy of Europe provides you with the tools to answer these questions and assess the likelihood of each of the two scenarios above and of others that may emerge as the crisis of EMU unfolds. But it does more. It also examines different aspects of economic integration, fragmentation and reform in Europe, of the establishment and evolution of democratic capitalism in Central Europe, and of the trajectories of the EU since the late 1970s. In each of these areas, Europe is facing a new and unprecedented mix of opportunities and potential crises. And problems in many of these broad areas have the tendency to spill over into any of the others as the Euro crisis has made painfully clear. The Executive Masters degree in the Political Economy of Europe offers working professionals the opportunity to earn an LSE Master s degree while pursuing a full-time career. The programme is aimed at candidates with strong academic credentials and substantial work experience. A Bachelor s degree or equivalent is a necessary pre-requisite. The strongest applicants have at least three years of professional experience in international organisations, non-governmental organisations, or the private sector in matters related to Europe. The courses in the Executive Masters degree in the Political Economy of Europe are taught by experienced teaching staff in the European Institute at the LSE. Students attend eight one-week sessions at the LSE campus in central London. Evaluations consist of essays as well as written take-home exams. A key component of this Executive degree is a dissertation of up to 6,000 words on a topic individually selected. Students receive special research training and support on and off campus to guide them through their dissertation. Over the course of the programme, students have 150 face-to-face contact hours with staff, additional meetings with their tutors, and support while off-campus through online revision sessions and virtual seminars. Through the duration of the programme students have full access to the LSE Library, the largest in the world devoted exclusively to the social sciences. LSE is one of Europe s most influential platforms for addressing issues, trends and policies affecting both the European Union and the wider Europe. The LSE European Institute and its various research centres play host to a number of seminar and public lecture series, including the high-profile Perspectives on Europe public lecture series, which attracts leading decision-makers and opinion formers from across the continent, with speakers submitted to lively and incisive questioning by LSE students and academics, as well as by the media and the wider public. Far left: Heinz Fischer, President of Austria Middle top: Philip Rösler, German Federal Minister of Economics and Technology Middle bottom: Herman Can Rompuy, President of the European Council 1

4 ABOUT THE EUROPEAN INSTITUTE The European Institute (EI) at the London School of Economics and Political Science was created in 1991 to be a primary focus for the inter-disciplinary study of processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. Its disciplinary range is unrivalled. It currently has 25 academic members of staff drawn from the fields of politics, economics, geography, history, political economy, law, philosophy, and international relations. It has prioritised four important themes in its work, which could not be fully studied within a department with a single discipline: Governance and democracy in European Union European society Political economy in Europe Europe beyond the EU The Institute offers six Masters programmes, an Executive MSc and an extensive doctoral programme. It currently has one of the largest cohorts of European studies students anywhere in the world with over 200 Masters students and 40 doctoral students from around the world. The Institute is outward looking. It has strong links with other LSE departments, most notably the Government and International Relations Departments. It has also developed a number of collaborative links with international partners, most notably Sciences Po with whom it has a joint degree. The EI is a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and recognised world-wide as a leading research centre on Europe. In 2008 it led the UK s Research Exercise in European Studies, and its staff and PhD students have won several prestigious international prizes. The final hallmark of the Institute is a strong public profile, making the LSE one of the leading platforms in the European Union for informed public discussion about the history and identity of Europe, and the policy challenges confronting the EU and its member states. The Institute hosts over 50 events a year, with an outstanding cast list of high-level speakers from politics, public administration, academia and the media, including presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, finance ministers, EU commissioners, and heads of European agencies and the EU institutions, along with distinguished scholars and influential commentators. 2

5 COURSE GUIDES 2014/15 EU452E Key Issues in the Political Economy of Europe This is the core course of the Executive MSc Political Economy of Europe. It tries to understand how the relation between state and economy in both Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe has evolved over the post-war period. Key debates in this regard include the demise of Keynesianism as fiscal intervention by government and of real existing socialism, as well as the crisis of monetarism. We also examine how the operation of the EU as a whole, the Single Market and the monetary union in particular, interact with the political economy of European states inside and in the neighbourhood of the Community. The course aims to provide students with both an analytical understanding of and a systematic treatment of empirical issues related to the evolution of the European political economy. Topics include: State and economy in European economies; Economic theory and policy in Europe; The political economy of European integration; EU membership as a reform lever in post-communist Europe and in mature Western welfare states; EU enlargement; Monetary union and its crisis; the evolution of the Single Market. 18 x 3 hour seminars One individual essay, one project, plus a trial examination One essay (50 per cent) and a three-hour written examination (50 per cent) EU449E Capitalism and Democracy in Central Europe The course applies concepts of political economy, economics and political science to its investigation of Central and Eastern Europe s evolution through post-communist transition to highly open, FDI-dependent emerging markets with European expectations of welfare. Placing the region in the comparative context of both the EU15 and comparable emerging markets, the course investigates the ongoing challenges of political and institutional consolidation and the developmental consequences of the liberalization and FDI-led growth model of the 1990s/2000s. The course examines the emerging strengths and persistent weaknesses of these political economies and considers their implications for the region s emerging varieties of capitalism, relative international competitiveness and political stability. 9 x 3 hour seminars One essay One essay (50 per cent) and a two-hour written examination (50 per cent) EU443E European Capitalism(s) and the Global Economy The course consists of two parts. In the first part we will discuss the basic arguments and methodological considerations of the Varieties of Capitalism literature and conduct a comparative analysis of the core issue areas in the political economy of contemporary capitalism: how capital, labour and product markets are structured. The second part will build on these thematic treatments to discuss the structure of and dynamics of the main Western, Southern and Central European models of capitalism. 9 x 3 hour seminars One essay One essay (50 per cent) and a two-hour written examination (50 per cent) 3

6 EU425E Interest Groups, Markets and Democracy The focus of this course is on the representation of interests in Europe, and their role in Economic policy-making. Students will analyse the main theoretical issues and selected empirical questions on how interests are differently organised across countries and at the EU level, on the interplay between interest representation and electoral politics, and on the policy outcome after interest intermediation. The objective is to understand the dynamics of economic policy-making in comparative perspective, with an emphasis on the globalisation period. 9 x 3 hour seminars One essay One essay (50 per cent) and a two-hour written examination (50 per cent) EU497E Dissertation Students in the Executive MSc Political Economy of Europe are required to write a dissertation on a topic within the field of their programme. 9 x 3 hour seminars on aspects of research, writing etc At least two research proposal drafts within two-month intervals. Final dissertation project outline after six months (from December to July) Deadline Second Monday in September of the second year EU446E Economic Governance of EMU The purpose of this course is to analyse the process of European monetary integration and its implications for the institutions of economic governance in the EU. There will be a strong emphasis on using the experience of the financial and economic crises since 2008 as a source of evidence to assess both the performance of EMU and the theories about monetary integration. We consider briefly the political and economic rationale for the establishment of EMU and then examine in detail how these rationales played themselves out in practice (e.g. problems of free-riding, political exchange, information asymmetries between policymakers etc). Indicative questions addressed in this course include: how and why did the EU develop the EMU project?; did economic theories prepare us for the Euro area crisis of ?; what are the challenges for member states in adjusting to the discipline of the Euro-zone?; what issues arise for the EU in managing relations between member states in the Euro-zone and those outside?; how does the Euro affect the ability of member states to adjust to periods of crisis and to external shocks?; is the sovereign debt crisis of 2010 indicative of imbalances within the EU and basic flaws in its institutional design? 9 x 3 hour seminars One essay One essay (50 per cent) and a two-hour written examination (50 per cent) EU453E The Political Economy of Welfare State Reform The aim of the course is to apply concepts of economics and political economy to social policies in European welfare states. The seminars establish the theoretical context, summarise the findings of quantitative comparative case studies and discuss European experience in the context of broader international experience. They then build on these concepts and apply them to qualitative case studies of welfare state arrangements in member states, considering in particular the role of social policy legislation and coordination at the EU level. The course will provide students with the conceptual and empirical background to enable them to answer questions such as: What does economic theory and political economy tell us about the design of welfare states? How do social policies in European welfare states reconcile equity and efficiency? What drives or stalls reform dynamics in member states? What are the proper boundaries of EU social policy? Is the EU gradually developing into a social union, through international mobility and the portability of social entitlements? 9 x 3 hour seminars One essay One essay (50 per cent) and a two-hour written examination (50 per cent) 4

7 SCHEDULE FOR THE EXECUTIVE MSC IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EUROPE YEAR /15 July August September PRE-MODULE ACTIVITIES July-September September 2014 (EU452E) YEAR /16 MODULE September 2015 (EU425E) October November December January MODULE December 2014 (EU452E (2)) MODULE January 2016 (EU497E) February March April MODULE March 2015 (EU449E) MODULE April 2016 (EU446E) May June MODULE 3* June 2015 (EU443E) MODULE June 2016 (EU453E) July 5

8 PRELIMINARY READING If you want to have a broad sense of the topics that the degree addresses and the way it does, the books below give that. In addition, please visit the webpages of the EI staff to find out about their research output: lse.ac.uk/europeaninstitute/ staff/academicstaff/home Eichengreen, B J (2007): The European economy since 1945: Coordinated capitalism and beyond, Princeton NJ: Princeton UP Nicholas Barr (Ed) (2005): Labor Markets and Social Policy in Central and Eastern Europe: The Accession and Beyond, World Bank James A Caporaso (2000): The European Union: Dilemmas of Regional Integration, Westview Press Paul De Grauwe (2005): The Economics of Monetary Union. Oxford University Press Kenneth Dyson and Kevin Featherstone (1999): The Road to Maastricht, Introduction, Oxford University Press Grzegorz Ekiert and Stephen E Hanson (2003): Capitalism and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: Assessing the Legacy of Communist Rule, Cambridge University Press Peter A Hall and David Soskice (eds) (2001): Varieties of Capitalism: The institutional foundations of competitiveness. Introduction, Oxford University Press Andrew Martin and George Ross (eds) (2004): Euros and Europeans. Monetary Integration and the European Model of Society. Cambridge University Press Gérard Roland (2000): Transition and economics: politics, markets and firms, chapter 1, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press Stephen White, Judy Batt and Paul G Lewis (2003): Developments in Central and East European Politics 3, Palgrave 6

9 ENTRY REQUIREMENTS 2:1 or equivalent in any discipline, with social science background and/or work experience in the field of political economy Test of English (IELTS or TOEFL) for non-native English speakers who cannot demonstrate proficiency otherwise Minimum of three years work experience Two references one academic and one professional (or two professional if you have been out of school for 10 years or more) Resume or Curriculum Vitae For full details of our entry requirements visit: study/degreeprogrammes/executive- MSc-in-the-Political-Economy-of-Europe/ ExecutiveMScinPoliticalEconomyOfEurope.aspx 7 7

10 For more details on the European Institute and its staff, and the London School of Economics and Political Science, please visit: European Institute Cowdray House London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street WC2A 2AE lse.ac.uk/europeaninstitute lse.ac.uk 8