Team Exercise – Devolutionary Pressures in Europe

You are responsible for reading and understanding these instructions. If you turn in an assignment that does not follow these instructions, your grade will reflect it.

Deadlines

  1. Rough Draft: Saturday, March
  2. Final Project: Saturday, April
  3. Assessment of individual and team members’ contributions: Saturday, April

Overview

Devolution refers to a process in which powers are granted by a central government to a lower level region or state. More specifically, it describes the process in which centrifugal forces (those that divide a state) such as cultural diversity or difference in religion, language, etc., divides a region or peoples of a region in which they gain political strength through demands, negation, or rebellion. Devolution typically occurs in countries where nationalism grows due to centrifugal forces and their inhabitant feel the need to depart from their centers (or central government); in many instances, they consider themselves minorities within a country. There are many examples of devolution occurring today. In Europe, Catalonia, Scotland, and Ukraine are some of the regions undergoing this transformation.

This exercise is based on the most important aspects highlighted in the section, “Regionalism and Regional Movements”, from Chapter 7 of our course textbook (Ostergren and Le Bosse 2013: 246-257, and other pertinent sections of this chapter). In this activity, students will be assembled in teams of four-five members each. Each team member will analyze one case study of a European country facing devolutionary pressures, and all teams must include the following case studies: Catalonia (Spain), Scotland (United Kingdom), and Ukraine

 

 Rough Draft / Final Project

It is expected that the rough draft will include the complete individual Case Studies ONLY, not the Introduction or Conclusions sections.

The team will compose a paper that must include an outline of the project (introduction), an analysis of the information provided (case studies), conclusion section, bibliography, and map. The structure of the team project, which is delineated in the following pages, must include these sections:

  1. Introduction – (which must be composed by the entire team);
  2. Case Studies (individual activity); and,
  3. Conclusions (team activity);
  4. Bibliography section (included at end of project);
  5. Map in which the team will include the countries/regions studied included in their

Sources to Compose your Work

Students are encouraged to use any academic source, including the course textbook (required to include in this assignment), as well as the news media, especially BBC News, CNN, The New York Times, and any other reputable news source. Students are not allowed to use Wikipedia.

Structure of the Collaboration Page and Paper

(The Collaborations Page does not have to include a Cover Page and/or a Map)

  1. Cover Page: Title, names of members of the Team and area studied (individual case studies), GEA 3500, Spring 2023, Date Submitted.
  2. Table of Contents

 

  • Introduction (team activity): Briefly answer the following questions to introduce the overall Note that you will have to answer the same questions in the Conclusions section in detail, so you should just include a general overview of the issues presented in this section. Please do not include these questions in your work.
    • What are devolutionary pressures and how are these expressed in Europe?
    • What has caused a resurgence of regionalism in Europe in recent times?
    • What role has cultural identity played in the formation of these processes/pressures?
    • What common characteristics and themes are shared by the regions experiencing devolutionary pressures and studied by your team?
    • What distinguishes the inhabitants living in these regions from the majority of the national population of the country where they live in?

 

  1. Case Studies (individual activity). Each team member must compose their individual case study, answering thoroughly the following After providing an overview of the location of the region you are studying in relation to the country where it is situated, answer the following questions:
    • In terms of its physical landscape, where is the region that is experiencing a devolutionary process located and what type of climate is prevalent? (use Figure 5 and 2.4 of the textbook).
    • According to the sources you have consulted, do these physical/natural characteristics have played any role in the historical background for this devolutionary process? How?
    • How do the people that inhabit the region you are studying speak about their relationship to the land and the environment?
    • Do they express any ideas on biodiversity conservation? Do they say anything about their homeland? If the region you are studying has a website (official or not), what role do maps play on their web site/s?
    • Is this region located close to or far from the center of power of the country (the national capital city)?
    • Does this condition have any impact on the reasons why they would like to gain at-least more autonomy to make their own decisions?
    • According to the source/s you have consulted, what are the main reason/s why this population would like to break-up from the country in which they live in?
    • Do this/these source/s mention any explanation/s based on cultural or ethnic characteristics? For example, speaking a different language? Which one? Professing a different religion? Which one? Economic disparities?

 

In addition to these questions and in case some of these regions have their own websites, or you have consulted a source published by a native inhabitant of the region, or you have read excerpts from interviews, look for discussion of conflict, cooperation, or disagreement with national governments, private companies, or multinational corporations working in this region. You may also want to use the following questions to improve your study:

  • Do the people living in the region you are studying have more than one self- generated website and do those sites present different ideas?
  • Is there a regional or national project or policy that is disputed?
  • What position is taken on the website/s? How is the position framed in relation to their rights to self-rule and culture?
  • What major issues and challenges does the site highlight and how do these relate to globalization?

 

  1. Conclusions (team activity): In this section you must make meaningful comparisons among the regions your team has studied, summarizing all the previous issues (questions) covered in the Introduction section and in the Case Studies portion.
    • What are devolutionary pressures and how are these expressed in Europe? Here you should include an overview of regionalism and regional movements in
    • What has caused a resurgence of regionalism in Europe in recent times?
    • What role has cultural identity played in the formation of these processes/pressures? What common characteristics and themes are shared by the regions experiencing devolutionary pressures and studied by your team?
    • What distinguishes the inhabitants living in these regions from the majority of the national population of the country where they live in?
    • How do the people living in these regions speak about their relationship to the land and the environment?
    • In terms of cultural identity, are there regional differences in the groups you have studied?
    • In terms of their unity, how integrated are the people living in these regions? Are there any regions studied by your team that show internal conflicts or lack of unity?
    • Taking in consideration all aspects of your study, how do you envision the future of Europe will look like in 50 or 100 years?
  2. Bibliography (team activity): You must include a full citation of all resources included in your Team Page/Paper in this section. It is required to include a reference from our course
  • Map (team activity): You must include a map at the end of your work, including the approximate location of all regions/countries Your map must include a pertinent title, an orientation arrow pointing to the geographical north, labels for all regions/countries included in your work, and a legend.

 

Technical Aspects of the Paper

Just like all written assignment in this course, your paper must conform to the following formatting:

  • Submitted in a word document,
  • 12-point font (Arial, Times New Roman, Garamond, or Book Antiqua),
  • one-inch margins all around,
  • double-spaced,
  • numbered pages

Any exercise that does not follow the technical aspects will result in a 10-point deduction in their final grade.

 You must use the Collaborations tool available in CANVAS to collaborate within your team; nevertheless, the grading of individual contributions of each team member will be based on the participation in the Team’s Collaboration page. All team members must participate. If a team member is failing to properly contribute to the project, please message the Team Leader and your professor.

Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Any assignments that have been plagiarized will earn an automatic failure grade in the course