Teaching (dissident) theory in crisis European Union

Special Issue: JCMS Special Issue 2016: Another Theory is Possible: Dissident Voices in Theorising Europe. Guest Editors: Ian Manners and Richard WhitmanAbstract:
Teaching theory in the study of EU politics has long posed a range of pedagogical challenges, in part because of the broad range of questions that scholars have posed in relation to the EU as object of study. Often such a challenge is overcome by focusing mainly on how integration occurred/occurs and the associated classical theories of integration.
However, this article argues that we do our students a disservice by ignoring an extant theoretical plurality, and perhaps never more so than in the context of the current crisis and its multiple effects. In particular, the crisis heightens the imperative for engagement with questions posed by what this special issue calls 'dissident’ theoretical approaches. Drawing on the experience of co-authoring a textbook on EU politics, the article considers some of the ways in which we might practically include such approaches, while remaining cognizant of pedagogical constraints.