The aim is to cover the following topics. However, please note that the first session will be used to adapt contents to the interests of course participants and to plan in more detail the work to be undertaken. Each session is two hours.

 Taking management of the post-2007 financial and economic crisis as a case study, the objectives are to situate macro-economic governance and policies in the European Union and the Euro Area in their larger historical and comparative contexts; to examine key governance and policy issues; to draw up a balance sheet of performance; and to help develop the communication, presentational and group-work skills of course participants. Each session addresses one or more central questions in European macro-economic governance and policies.

 A combination of lecturing with course work. In seminars course participants will make short presentations, if possible involving group work, and act as discussants of each other's work.

  Teaching is by weekly three-hour seminar (six seminars of three hours each).

 The module involves at least one non-assessed seminar presentation to test substantive knowledge, skills of analysis and coherent and rigorous argument, and communication and presentation skills; and a 3,000 word assessed essay comprising 100% of the module mark. The seminar presentation can form the basis for the assessed essay.

• A Catalyst for Union? The Euro Area in its Historical and Comparative Context. Can a Currency without a State Survive? What Sort of Political Framework Does the Euro Require?
• Providing Shelter? The Euro, EU Enlargement and the Relations between 'Ins' and 'Outs': the Euro as Differentiated Integration. How is the Euro Affecting the Larger Europe? Is the Euro Area a Nascent Core Europe?
• Delivering Price Stability? The European Central Bank and Monetary Policy. Too Independent, Too Lacking in Accountability, Too Little Transparency, Too Asymmetric a Monetary Policy?
• Managing Systemic Risk? Financial Stability and Financial Market Supervision. From Exchange Rate Crises to Cross-National Banking Crises and Sovereign Risk Crises? Contagion. The Anglo-American financial model.
• Reducing Imbalances? Macro-economic and Fiscal Policy Co-ordination and the Euro Group. What Future for the Stability and Growth Pact and for the Lisbon Process? Towards an ‘Economic Government’? The cases of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.
• Europeanizing Member States? EMU and Member-State Economic Policies. How Far, and In What Ways, Is EMU Europeanizing Member States?
• Finding a Single Voice? The External Role and Representation of the EU and of the Euro Area. How Is the Euro Affecting International Monetary Power? Is It a Rival to the US Dollar? Does It Speak with a Unified Voice?
• A Balance Sheet of Crisis Prevention and Crisis Management. How Successful is the Euro? - Concluding Remarks.

K. Dyson (1994), Elusive Union: The Process of Economic and Monetary Union in Europe. London: Routledge.

K. Dyson and K. Featherstone (1999), The Road to Maastricht: Negotiating Economic and Monetary Union. Oxford: Oxford UP.

K. Dyson (2000), The Politics of the Euro-Zone: Stability or Breakdown? Oxford: Oxford UP.

K. Dyson (ed.) (2002), European States and the Euro: Europeanization, Variation and Convergence. Oxford: Oxford UP.

K. Dyson and K. Goetz (eds) (2003), Germany, Europe and the Politics of Constraint. Proceedings of the British Academy/OUP.

K. Dyson (ed.) (2006), Enlarging the Euro Area. Oxford: OUP.

K. Dyson (2008), The Euro at 10, Oxford: OUP.

Dyson, K. and Marcussen, M. (2009), Central Banks in the Age of the Euro. Oxford: OUP.

Dyson, K. and Quaglia, L. (2010). European Economic Governance and Policies. Oxford: OUP, 2 volumes.

Further reading material will be distributed at the beginning of the course.