THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:
Nationalism: How was Europe divided politically in the decades following World War II? When did this division end? What are the major changes that have occurred since the end of the 1980s that make Europe’s current political geography so dynamic? How does one define nationalism? When and how did nationalism emerge as a force? What was the role of Romanticism in the rise of European nationalism (examples of romantic nationalistic symbols on the landscape)? How might we differentiate between how nationalism established itself in Western Europe as opposed to Eastern Europe? What happened to Europe’s large multi-ethnic empires after World War I? What extreme form of nationalism arose in Europe between the two world wars? How have national feelings affected commemorative monuments to World War II (examples)? What has happened to nationalism since World War II in the West vs. the East? To what extent have extreme-right, xenophobic political parties come to play a significant role in the politics of western European countries? How can the bitter conflicts that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia during the 1990s be viewed as an extreme and violent example of ethno-nationalism in the post-Cold War era? How can the possibility of independence for Scotland be compared with what has happened in the Balkans (media article)? The possibility of a new Eurasian Union, consisting of Russia and several other east European countries, has been raised … in what ways would this vision differ from that of the old Soviet Union (media article)? What are the so-called micro-states of Europe, and how are they unique?
Supranationalism: What do we mean when we speak of the “hollowing out” of the nation state? What were the origins and early goals of the EEC? What do we mean by the terms “widenings” and “deepenings” What countries made up the original EEC 6, the EC 9, EC 10, EC 12, and EU 15? What 10