Simulations, understood as complex role plays, are nowadays widely used in (university) teaching to actively engage students and promote content-specific interactive learning, understanding, and communication. There is a growing debate about the functions and benefits of simulations in the university teaching context. Simulating the EU is not yet as common as simulating the UN, but the use of EU simulations gradually increases. In this paper, we discuss several aspects of EU simulations. First, we briefly review the importance of the EU in current European politics, and to its growing complexity, which represents a challenge for teaching and studying European integration. Second, we indicate that simulations address new didactical demands that arose in the context of the Bologna Process and the so-called ‘shift from teaching to learning’. And third, we move beyond the debate of EU simulations as merely an active learning tool, and discuss the (underestimated) role they may play as quasi-experiments, which may constitute a valuable resource both for didactical and European integration research. Together, these three aspects make EU simulations a promising multi-dimensional tool.

One of the most notable challenges of getting colleagues to try out simulations in European studies teaching is the overcoming of start-up costs. In particular, the creation of a scenario from scratch or the adaptation of an existing game can be daunting. The article discusses these challenges and their origins in the fundamental assumptions that simulations make about both the world and pedagogy. In particular, the tension between the simple rules that are understood to capture real-world phenomena and the complexity that those rules produce creates not only an excellent learning opportunity but also a barrier to developing useful resources for simulation designers. The article offers a number of ways that such a barrier can be overcome, including the development of a simulation designer community, use of online guides and the creation of simulations that teach about simulation design. These ideas are illustrated with a number of practical examples.

The authors reflect on the potential of simulation games for teaching the European Union. They argue that when developing or using simulations it is imperative to decide, first of all, on the learning objective(s). The authors distinguish games geared primarily towards conveying knowledge from those aimed at training soft skills. The former can focus on teaching the processes and dynamics of European politics (politics), on teaching factual knowledge about a given policy field (policy) or on teaching the Union’s institutional aspects (polity). The second category concerns objectives such as training teamwork, communication and negotiation skills, as well as empathy, the ability to deal with complexity and making decisions under stress. The relevance of these objectives for teaching and training students is assessed on the basis of case studies describing different simulation game concepts. Although the authors acknowledge that simulation games enjoy an increasing popularity within academic teaching, they maintain that their use in European Studies is largely restricted to classical concepts and argue for a more extensive use of more experimental simulation games.

The article analyses how the setting of EU simulations influences negotiation outcomes, that is, the content of the simulated directives. We have played the same simulation of the chocolate directive – the same roles and the same Commission proposal – in various settings (with different kinds of participants, various group sizes, for one or two days, with instructors or participants playing the European Parliament (EP)). A quantitative analysis elucidates relations between settings and outcomes we would not see when considering only one simulation at a time. First, the simulation scales well. Simulation duration, number and kind of participants have little impact on the range of outcomes. Second, the directive is more liberal if participants play the EP, indicating that our instructors play the EP too tough. Third, Swiss participants negotiate stricter and more consensual directives. These results can inform the further evolution of the simulation based on hard data.

Simulations have become popular teaching tools in political science and EU studies curricula. Proponents point out that simulations match with constructivist theories of learning. They argue that students will better understand EU decision making when they combine theoretical knowledge about negotiation theory with knowledge about how the EU works and with the experience of negotiating as if they were EU actors. This article aims to validate the pedagogical claims by constructivists regarding simulations in two ways. It assesses the organisation of EuroSim, a four day comprehensive simulation of EU decision making organised by the Trans-Atlantic Consortium for European Union Studies & Simulations (TACEUSS) as an active learning environment. In addition, using data from pre- and post-simulation surveys among participants, the authors show that through participation in simulations students gained in the areas of affective learning, such as the ability for self-assessment, as suggested by the constructivist literature.

Model European Union (MEU) is a simulation of European politics that aims to familiarise young Europeans with the decision-making process of the European Union (EU). Participants simulate the cooperation between the Commission, the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of the EU in the ordinary legislative procedure. About 190 people annually participate at MEU Strasbourg, which takes place on the premises of the EP. This article uses quasi-experimental panel data from surveys with participants of MEU 2012 to test the impact of the simulation conference. While most empirical research on the effects of political simulations addresses the educational effectiveness of classroom simulations, this article tries to answer a research question with a new focus on political attitudes: Do EU simulations influence European identity and political support of the EU?

Analyses of local campaign effects are dominated by aggregate-level analyses of constituency activity. Though individual-level data are available on whether voters are (or remember being) contacted by parties during campaigns, their analysis is fraught with difficulties, not least the extent to which memory of campaign contact is itself conditioned partly on party allegiance, creating a circularity in the analysis of the impact of party contact on vote choice. To some degree, this can be (and has been) dealt with in a regression framework. However, this does not fully deal with the potential difficulties. Ideally, experimental approaches are needed to tease out definitively the effects of campaign exposure on individual’s election decisions. However, these present practical difficulties. In this paper, therefore, we utilise quasi-experimental difference-in-difference and propensity score matching methods to estimate campaign effects at the 2010 British General Election from individual-level data.

As the term ‘soft power’ in international relations (IR) has been coined by Joseph Nye a quarter of a century ago it has gained a great response and initiated numerous debates. A high quality education sector is one of the important factors that contributes to a country’s soft power. Despite that, as shown in the article, education has not been adequately covered in the existing IR literature. The article addresses this lacuna by offering an attempt to conceptualise and operationalise the educational aspect of soft power. First, with cases from the People’s Republic of China and Finland, it provides various examples of growing internationalisation of education, and analyses possible soft power gains from education. Second, the article provides a theoretical conceptualization of educational soft power, and presents three mechanisms that it can work through: as a carrier of genuine values, as a resource that countries possess, and as a tool in achieving certain goals. All three mechanisms also show how increasing internationalisation brings more direct connections between education, international relations, and foreign policy.

This article contributes to our understanding of merits and weaknesses associated with the subnational comparative case study. Despite its methodological strengths and the increasing importance of subnational units in politics, the subnational comparative case study remains underutilized in comparative politics. The root cause of the method’s merits lies in the substantive importance of subnational units in politics; at the same time, however, the difficulty of abstracting theory from local specificities hinders the wide utilization of this method. Through examining some important studies in comparative politics and Chinese politics that use comparative case studies, I identify problems in case selection and in achieving generalizability in research design of subnational comparative case studies.

Undergraduate research, the practice of teaching students by engaging them in a research project, has a long record of achievement. Research-based evaluations show it is likely to have a range of positive educational and career outcomes for students. Many examinations of these benefits apply to STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). This article sets out one approach to undergraduate research in political science, based on an apprenticeship model. Using a small survey of all those who have followed the GV314 course at the London School of Economics since 2004 the article finds evidence that the benefits of undergraduate research appear to be quite striking outside STEM subjects too.