Regionalism and Insularity in Europe

Objectives

The unit seeks, firstly, to explore the emergence and consolidation of regionalism and autonomy in Europe, comparing and contrasting the structural concepts of regionalism and regionalization. Secondly, to promote the knowledge of Azorean regionalism, inserting it in European context. Thirdly, to expose students to the mechanisms developed in the European Union, for the access of the Regions to the concrete exercise of political power, at the domestic, regional and national levels, as well as at the European and international levels. We search, in this manner, to raise their awareness to the new pulverization of power operated throughout Europe, as well as to the roles that, understood as true political agents, the Regions can fulfill at the national, European and international scales. Finally, the discipline seeks to enable the students to promote an exercise of guided research and writing of a research paper on an autonomous European region on a European regional organism

Program

Information available soon.

Teaching Methodologies

The teaching activities for the curricular unit unfold along three major lines: theoretical classes, of presentation of concepts, arguments and theories; theoretical and practical classes dedicated to questioning, analyzing, exploring and commenting of selected texts and the respective nuclear contents; tutorials, for the orientation of the work developed by the students, individually and in groups. An interactive methodology, centered on the student is adopted. Throughout the semester we proceed with the construction of explanatory schemes of the concepts, theories and issues addressed.

Bibliography

Carlos E. Pacheco Amaral, ed. Autonomie régionale et relations internationales, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2011;

,”Decentralisation and asymmetries in Portugal”, in Ferran Requejo, and Klaus Jurgen Nagel, eds., Federalism

Beyond Federations. Asymmetry and Processes of Resymmetrisation in Europe, London, Ashgate, 2010;

, “Constituição Europeia e Europa das Regiões”, in O Direito, nº 137, Vol. IV-V, Lisboa, 2005;

, Do Estado soberano ao estado das autonomias, Porto, Afrontamento, 1998;

Amaral, João Bosco Mota, O desafio insular, Ponta Delgada, Signo, 1989;

Barros, James, The Aland Islands question: its settlement by the League of Nations, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968;

Leite, José Guilherme Reis, Sobre a autonomia dos Açores, Ponta Delgada, Signo, 1990;

Hache, Jean Didier, coord., Quel statut pour les îles d’Europe? Paris, Harmattan, 2000;

Keating, Michael, The New Regionalism in Western Europe, Cheltenham, U.K., Northampton, MA. USA, Edward Elgar, 1998.