杏吧论坛

Professor Yaprak Gursoy CBG 7.04

This course is available on the MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (杏吧论坛 & Sciences Po), MSc in European and International Public Policy, MSc in European and International Public Policy (杏吧论坛 and Bocconi), MSc in European and International Public Policy (杏吧论坛 and Sciences Po), MSc in International Migration and Public Policy, MSc in International Migration and Public Policy (杏吧论坛 and Sciences Po), MSc in Political Economy of Europe, MSc in Political Economy of Europe (杏吧论坛 and Fudan) and MSc in Political Economy of Europe (杏吧论坛 and Sciences Po). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access). In previous years we have been able to provide places for all students that apply but that may not continue to be the case.

When compared with their Northern counterparts, countries that lie on the Southern flank of Europe share different historical, political and socioeconomic trajectories. The interwar period that witnessed civil wars, authoritarianism and coups d’état transitioned into a more stable period through democratisation and EU membership in the 1970s-1990s. During this period, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey (to varying extents) reconciled their long-lasting clashes between left and right politics, resettled debates over unitary versus federal structures and accommodated religious identities within politics. This phase of political resolution occurred decades later than other European countries that were also a part of the Western alliance during the Cold War.

Yet, the domestic arrangements that brought about relative stability to domestic politics in Southern Europe faced a series of new crises in the past 15 years.  The financial crisis of 2008 separated Southern European members from other EU countries, once again. As party systems changed and populist parties asserted new demands, local differences and calls for regional independence heightened. The arrival of refugees through the Mediterranean and land borders, as well as growing Euroscepticism, compounded these problems while the pandemic has added extra pressure to these crisis-ridden systems.

Taking into consideration the past and the present, this course investigates whether and to what extent Southern Euro