Seminar Simulations of the European Union’s Intergovernmental Institutions: The Council of Ministers and Qualified Majority Voting

Abstract

The case for the use of simulations in political science seminars to provide illustrative learning of complex political process has been well demonstrated across a variety of sub-disciplines within political science. Their value to the teaching of European Union politics has also been explored and is particularly valuable for the EU’s numerous examples of complex decision-making processes. This is particularly true of the EU’s Qualified Majority of Voting (QMV) system used in its Council of Ministers. This article demonstrates the use of a QMV simulation for undergraduate EU politics classes. Achievement of learning outcomes was greatly improved versus the standard Socratic seminar method and was in confirmed student feedback.