APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2016/2017

GRA 5915 Business and Politics in the European Union: The Political Economy of the Single Market

Responsible for the course
Nick Sitter, Kjell A Eliassen

Department
Department of Law

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
This is an international political economy course that focuses on the European Union’s single market. It requires no previous knowledge, and has been designed for the ‘Minor in Political Economy’ specialization. The central focus is on business and politics in the EU, and more specifically on the policy process and regulation is the Single European Market.

Learning outcome
The course focuses on regulation and competition in the Single European Market, addressing the rationales and motivations for economic regulation and centering on the evolution of competition policy and sector regulation, as well as changes in the light of liberalisation and de-regulation. Students will become familiar with the EU policy process, the theory and practice of regulation and competition policy, and a several selected policy sectors (eg.g. financial services, energy, defence procurement, ICT etc) . The course covers several aspects of the regulatory state, such as liberalisation; self-regulation, flexibility and indirect regulation; regulatory competition, cooperation and/or convergence; as well as the legal, administrative and political bases for regulation. Central questions include: What kind of regulation or competition policy is necessary in order to make markets work as desired? Who demands and supplies regulation? How does regulation work and how explain regulatory success and failures?

Prerequisites

All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have spesific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.

Compulsory reading
Books:
El-Agraa, Ali M. 2011. The European Union : economics and policies. 9th ed. Cambridge University Press
Nugent, Neill. 2010. The government and politics of the European Union. 7th ed. Palgrave Macmillan

Other:
A list of compulsory readings will be provided on It's learning or in class.
During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination.


Recommended reading
Books:
Baldwin, Robert, Martin Cave, Martin Lodge. 2012. Understanding regulation : theory, strategy, and practice. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press
Esther Versluis, Mendeltje van Keulen and Paul Stephenson. 2011. Analyzing the European Union policy process. Palgrave Macmillan
Freiberg, Arie. 2010. The tools of regulation. Federation Press
Gerber, David J. 2001. Law and competition in twentieth century Europe : protecting Prometheus. New ed. Clarendon Press
Jordana, Jacint and David Levi-Faur, eds. 2004. The politics of regulation : institutions and regulatory reforms for the age of governance. Edward Elgar
Newbery, David M. 1999. Privatization, restructuring, and regulation of network utilities. MIT Press
Ogus, Anthony. 2004. Regulation : legal form and economic theory. New ed. Hart

Other:
Individual journal articles and book chapters available in the library and/or electronically will be recommended as further reading.


Course outline
1. The Single European Market
2. European Union institutions and the EU policy process.
3. Business, politics and regulation: Economic policy and regulation in Western Europe and the USA. Privatisation, liberalisation and de-regulation.
4. Regulation and liberalisation in a global economy. The international dimension of regulation. Regulatory competition and cooperation.
5. Comparative competition policy: National (incl. Norwegian, US), European Union and international.
6. Sector regulation. Specific aspects of and case studies from slected sectors, such as the ICT sector (telecoms, communications and the media), the energy sector (oil, gas and electricity), financial services and capital markets defence procurement.

Computer-based tools
Not applicable

Learning process and workload
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.


Examination
The course grade will be based on the following activities and weights:
Assignment (15%)
Presentation (15%)
Term paper (70%, individual)