This comparative politics course discusses the most important features of the Western European Democracies. It is designed in four independent but complementary parts. Firstly, there is an introduction analyzing the macro context in which European democracies are established. In the second
part, we would look at the allegedly most important element of a democracy, elections. The third part will be grounded on the impact of the EU on European democracy but with concrete links to Spain, Catalonia and Barcelona like voter attitudes toward the EU and the relation between EU policies and linguistic minorities. Finally we set on to establish what makes Europe different from the US. By the end of the course, students should be able to make precise comparisons between features of European
countries and/or the US on any of the topics in the syllabus.

The Mediterranean historically has played a critical role as a cultural, economic and political crossroads. It was the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and a major arena for the spread of Islam. Some of the ancient and medieval worlds’ greatest empires were based on the Mediterranean: the Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Arab and Ottoman. Later, it was a focus for the imperial ambitions of the British, French, Spanish and Italians. Commerce lay at the heat of all these empires, with the sea offering a critical means of transport in the era before trains and trucks. One fashionable school of thought asserts that the Mediterranean, as the junction of the Islamic and Judeo-Christian worlds, of Europe and Asia and Europe and Africa, is the arena for a “clash of civilizations”. This view can be challenged on many grounds. The Mediterranean has historically been (and to a large extent continues to be) a privileged setting for economic, social and cultural exchanges between the countries located at its shores. To the extent that there are conflicts, they have usually arisen not from cultural or religious differences per se but from clashes of military and economic interests. This course is an introduction to this complex region and its key political, economic, cultural and religious issues.

This course aims to provide U.S. students knowledge about the EU. The course is focused on the historical evolution of the process of the European integration, how the EU institutions work, how public policy is adopted and which are the central issues and policies in the development of the EU. We play special attention to the interaction between the processes of government (institutional framework), public policies (policy process) and politics (interests, ideas and values of the different political actors).