Dr. Johannes Muntschick

Sem (MA/MA-EU) The EU and the dark side of Gobal Regionalism: containing Authoritarian States

Instructors: Dr. Johannes Muntschick
Shortname: Sem EU-Glob.region.
Course Type: Seminar

Requirements / organisational issues

Organizational issues:
- Task assignments

Digital teaching

Depending on the pandemic situation, the seminar may apply some elements of e-learning. This could include both methods of asynchronous (with time delay) and synchronous (live) teaching and interaction between students and lecturer.

The seminar outline will provide further details (distributed at a later time).

Recommended reading list

• Bach, D. C. & Gazibo, M. (eds.), 2012: Neopatrimonialism in Africa and Beyond. New York: Routledge.
• Bayart, J.-F., 1989: L' État en Afrique: La politique du ventre. Paris: Fayard.
• Börzel, T. A. & Risse, T. [eds.], 2016: Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Debre, M., 2021: The dark side of regionalism: how regional organizations help authoritarian regimes to boost survival. In: Democratization (28:2), 394-413.
• Gray, J., 2018: Life, Death, or Zombie? The Vitality of International Organizations In: International Studies Quarterly (62:1), 1-13.
• Jackson, R., 1990: Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Ravenhill, J., 2008: Regionalism. In: Ravenhill, J. [ed.]: Global Political Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 172-210.
• Söderbaum, F., 2004: Modes of Regional Governance in Africa: Neoliberalism, Sovereignty Boosting, and Shadow Networks. In: Global Governance (10:4). 419-436.
• Söderbaum, F., 2016: Rethinking Regionalism. London: Palgrave.

Since the end of the Cold War and in parallel to globalisation, we observe a mushrooming of new and renewed regionalisms in virtually all parts of the world – particularly in the global South. Quite often, at least in the academic debate, the European Union (EU) is seen as role model for global regionalism. While many regionalisms demonstrate how countries cooperate more or less successfully in various issue areas (economy, security, infrastructure etc.), we sometimes observe besides integration also disintegration dynamics – and we have evidence for institutional paralysis, symbolism or even failure.

Recent research suggests that regionalism is not necessarily only about international cooperation and collective goods. There seem to be ‘dark sides’ of regionalism where autocratic states exploit regional integration organizations (RIO) to boost legitimation of domestic politics and regime security. Accordingly, membership in RIO can help to strengthen survival chances of autocratic governments and ruling elites. This is because it provides inter alia additional resources (e.g. material, informational, and ideational) to autocratic incumbents that can be used to boost domestic survival strategies vis-à-vis internal and external challengers (Debre, 2021).

The seminar is dedicated to the ‘dark sides’ of regionalism and aims to analyse and explain the phenomenon with reference to theory and on the example of empirical case studies from Europe and the global South. In this context, the role and impact of the EU on other regionalisms will be scrutinized as well.

In the first part of the course, students will gain knowledge about theories and explanatory frameworks. This includes the latest research on the 'dark sides’ of regionalism and 'regime-boosting’ regionalism. In the second part of the course, empirical case study research shall be in the focus and students learn to apply their theory-based knowledge on specific regional organisations.

Additional information

Seminar in English

In order to demonstrate active participation, pass the course and gain credits/ECTS points, students need to complete certain task assignments (details will be provided in the seminar outline in the first session).

Dates