The course aims to provide students with an understanding of the EU political system, its actors, and its decision-making process also in comparison with national political systems in Europe. The course wants to provide three learning aims: (1) To provide theoretical insights into the political systems and their actors, and decision-making processes, based on the knowledge already provided to students in their Master's program at LUISS. (2) The approaches, techniques, and theoretical considerations on political management at EU level in comparison to national level. (3) The knowledge gained shall be tested with real insights through expert interviews. Students will meet nd discuss in person real decsision-maker and political/policy advisers to discuss the functioning of the EU political system and national systems in reality. For doing so, students will be trained in interview techniques, in particular in qualitative expert interviews

By the end of the course, students will acquire: • Knowledge of the functioning of the European Union with focus on the institutional settings, key political actors, and decision-making process; • analysis on taken policy and political decisions in a multi-level decision making process; • expectations, possibilities and limitations of political management at a supranational and at a national level. Applying knowledge and understanding: Students will be able to apply the acquired knowledge in their future professional activities, in several ways. In particular, they will be trained in: • Collecting and engaging with relevant academic as well as non-academic literature and grasping the key content; discussing topics and readings in class with the instructor and with colleagues; • Preparing policy briefs, analytically strategic notes or memos aimed at political decisions’ makers and other stakeholders; understanding the importance of high quality academic work and its translation into • Carrying out research (either academic or for professional purposes) on the content of the course, also applying the relevant methodologies of the discipline, in particular in qualitative interview techniques; writing academic papers. • Understanding political management in the various areas, as policy planning, policy advising, impact assessment, communication strategies. • Understanding political communication and drafting short pieces of press releases and/ or op eds. Making judgements: Due to the emphasis placed on re-elaboration and discussion of the readings, the case studies and the qualitative interviews students will be able to: • Critically analyse complex phenomena related to European Union and national political systems as well as and political decision-making process in general and contextualize them in the light of the knowledge acquired in the course; • Develop problem solving capacity and the ability to work as a team; • Differentiate between academic work approach on the one side and policy briefings and media work on the other side, and to understand that the first one will be always improve the second one. • Thanks to the understanding of the course’s key topics, debates and expert interviews, develop an autonomous and critical judgement about facts of EU politics. Communication skills: During the course students will be asked to contribute to the discussion in several ways, through presentations followed by discussion and questions from the instructor or through encouragement to present their argued and critical view on a certain topic, defend their contributions, such op eds and press releases, and to discuss with experts. Because of this, they will: • Improve the control of course-related terminology in English but at the same time be able to present complex content in an easly accessible form; • Become acquainted with engaging in critical discussion in front of a larger audience, communicating questions or comments in a clear way to the rest of the class, thus stimulating a general debate; • Present themselves in a political environment, such as the EU institutions; • Be capable to brief a politician and media. • Writing impactful op eds and

Analyse and understand the EU politics and policy, in particular its decision making system and the political management of its key actors in theory and practice.

S. Fabbrini, Compound Democracies: Why the United States and Europe Are Becoming Similar, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 52-79. I. Krastev: After Europe, Philadelphia, University of Philadelphia Press. V. Schmidt (2019): Politization in the EU: between national politics and EU political dynamics, in Journal of European Public Policy 26, pp. 1018-1036.