This course is designed to introduce the students to rational choice institutionalism as it is applied to European integration studies. Institutional configurations and their impact upon political outcomes within the study of European integration are analyzed with a focus on the analytic character of group choice, voting methods and behavior, cooperation, collective action, public goods, institutional choice and reform. First institutions are discussed as formal, legalistic entities and decision rules imposing restrictions upon utility maximizing self-interested political actors. Second, applications to our understanding of the EU enlargement, ratification and intergovernmental negotiations, European integration and governance are discussed.
