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Philosophy, Economics and Politics: Current Debates

Class at Faculty of Social Sciences |
JEM180

Syllabus

  1 (19.2.)

Lecture 1

J. Baxa, V. Semerák

Game rules and general guidelines. 2 (26.2.)

Lecture 2

J. Baxa

The Road to Brexit 3 (5.3.)

Lecture 3

V. Semerák

Trade Agreements and the EU’s Single Market 4 (12.3.)

Lecture 4

J. Baxa

Evaluating costs and benefits of Brexit I

Predicting short-term effects of large shocks 5 (19.3.)

Lecture 5

V. Semerák

Evaluating costs and benefits of Brexit II

Predicting long-term effects of large shocks 6 (26.3.)

Time for elaboration of the proposals and meeting with students

Teachers will meet with each group separately to ensure that all groups do understand their roles and tasks. 7 (9.4.)

Group presentations – analytical proposals

Groups are presenting their position papers 8 (16.4.)

Analytical proposals – review of the reports by other groups

Groups are reviewing the reports of the competing groups. Goal is to find weak and strong sides.   1st voting round

Groups must elect the binding analytical proposal / Groups must select alternatives for negotiations. 9 (23.4.)

Group presentations – policy maker perspective

Groups are presenting the policy proposals. 10 (30.4.)

Policy solution proposal – review of the reports by other groups

Groups are reviewing the reports of the competing groups. Goal is to find weak and strong sides.   2nd voting round

Groups must elect the final policy solution. 11 (7.5)

Follow up

J. Baxa and V. Semerák

Critical review of the experience with all activities: negotiation within and between groups, voting negotiations, analysis of the winning proposals, etc. 12 (14.5.)

Follow up

J. Baxa and V. Semerák

Philosophical perspective – do we decide according to the facts and scientific arguments? Role of values, falsification criteria, etc. Discussion about the personal assessments.

Annotation

2018/2019 In this course, teams of students will negotiate resolution of one of the current events. The theme of this year's course will be selected by students after the first lecture. The list of topics is attached. The purpose of this simulated negotiation is (i) to understand the obstacles of negotiations of political and economic agreements and (ii) to learn negotiation techniques (iii) to broaden and deepen understanding of the EU affairs. The course is divided into three parts. Firstly, we start with four lectures introducing the topic, to provide the key information to all participants. The game itself follows. The course is concluded by a follow-up and short essay. The detailed description of the game is provided in the syllabus. All materials are posted in moodle (course name JEM180 Philosophy, Economics and Politics II: Current Debates). https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=5990 List of topics suggested for 2018/2019:

1. Climate change: Shall EU adopt more and more strict regulations of emission rules for cars?

2. Brexit: Shall the EU allow the orderly Brexit without the Irish backstop?

3. EU Security screening: Shall the EU decide on investors in key sectors (i.e. infrastructure) with regards to security and policy?

4. Migration in the EU: Shall countries that do not accept migrants receive less EU funds in the future?

5. Resolution of the WTO crisis. How the rules of global trade shall change in the future? Topics in previous years: 2017/2018: Brexit negotiations, in particular the arrangement of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. 2016/2017: Italian banking crisis and the obstacles of the EU-wide resolution mechanisms of banking and fiscal crises.