Project website: www.webnode.com/my-webnode-projects/jean-monnet-module

The project represents an innovative and multidisciplinary approach to introducing European Union Studies at Nazarbayev University (NU) in Kazakhstan. The project consists of one core teaching activity, a European Union: Institutions and Policies (EUIP) course, whose objective is to promote first teaching experience for a young scholar and to nourish interests in the European Union (EU) in a country where students have limited knowledge about it. The reason for introducing this course at our University is the identified need to teach our undergraduate students enrolled in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences about the most advanced example of regional integration. This subject is particularly relevant for Kazakhstan which is undergoing regional integration within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The project entails few other auxiliary activities, such as: i) guest lectures delivered by experts from Europe aimed at bringing multidisciplinary perspectives, ii) creation of a blog where students enrolled in the EUIP course will be able to publish their research output on comparative regionalism, whereby they will apply the learn concepts from EU Studies to the integration efforts of the EAEU, iii) workshops dedicated both to disseminating the findings of the proposed project and to building bridges between the Kazakh policy-making community and the world of academia with the objective of facilitating transfer of knowledge and stimulating the generation of policy-relevant knowledge in academia and the development of evidence-based policy-making in the public sector, and iv) outreach sessions meant to stimulate interest in the EU among a target group not immediately involved in the project, such as high school students in Astana.  

European Union: Institutions and Policies is a 300-level undergraduate course whose core objective is to introduce students to one of the most advanced instances of regional integration, the European Union (EU). Students will get a chance to learn about the governance structure of the EU and its unique institutions and policies with the objective of applying that knowledge to the Kazakh experience of regional integration within the Eurasian Economic Union. Right from its inception, the Union attracted the attention of scholars from both Comparative Politics (CP) and International Relations (IR). In grappling to understand the nature of the emerging polity, the academic community appears divided on the question whether the EU’s sui generis nature necessitates the establishment of a distinct discipline or whether the established cannons of CP and IR are suitable for the subject matter. This course acknowledges that the uniqueness of the EU requires at least a paradigmatic shift within the existing disciplines of IR and CP. Undoubtedly, the EU project at the same time: a) shook the traditional analytical framework used by CP for assessing the political systems of nation-states because it drastically altered the domestic political game from a hierarchical ordering to an implicated governance structure and b) challenged the IR’s foremost assumptions, such as sovereignty and autonomy.

The course begins with an exploration of key historical developments in the European integration processes and introduces the main theoretical approaches used to explain those developments. It then proceeds to studying the political system of the European Union by examining in detail its key institutions and their prerogatives and functions. We will cover the European Council, the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Court of Justice of the EU. The last section of topics is dedicated to examining the policy-making process and key policy areas such as the Single Market regulatory policies, the Economic and Monetary policies and some redistributive policies which fall within the remint of EU’s competences. In doing so, we will address current issues arising from the recent economic and migration crises.

Throughout the course students are required to make a connecting logic between the European integration experience and the integration efforts of the Eurasian Economic Union. The numerous written assignments require students to engage in comparative analysis of the two examples of regional integration. Students should be able to compare: 

• The legal frameworks and treaties that govern the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU),
• The institutional structure of each regional bloc by examining the functions and roles of key EU’s intuitions such as the European Council, the Council of EU, the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Court of Justice of the European Union versus the key institutions of the Eurasian Economic Union, such as the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, the Eurasian Economic Commission, the Council, the Collegium, the Parliament, and the Court of the EAEU. 
• The policy-making processes of the EU and the EAEU.