In many Western European states, an increasing number of autonomist parties are taking part in government at state and regional levels. To date, however, scholars have paid little attention to the repercussions of government incumbency for these actors. This article aims to take a first step towards redressing this oversight. Based on an extensive literature examining political parties in government, we formulate hypotheses about how autonomist parties will approach, behave within and be affected by government office. We test these hypotheses by examining the participation of autonomist parties in regional and state governments in Western Europe since 1945. The findings demonstrate that the difficult decisions autonomist parties must make when entering government, the subsequent dilemmas and challenges that must be resolved once the threshold of government has been crossed, and the consequences of government incumbency, are similar to those faced by any political party in government. However, the fact that autonomist parties operate within a multi-level political context can render these challenges more complex than is the case for political parties operating (mainly or exclusively) at a single territorial level, usually that of the state. The article concludes by identifying key factors that affect the success of autonomist parties in government.

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Funder: ESRC RONO: ES/E015212/1This article examines the different dimensions of, and different factors affecting, minority nationalist party attitudes towards Europe. The article draws on evidence from minority nationalist parties in two different contexts?Plaid Cymru in Wales and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego in Galicia?to argue that minority nationalist party attitudes towards European integration are more complex than is usually asserted in the existing academic literature. First, even though minority nationalist parties converged around the idea of a Europe of the Regions during the 1980s and 1990s, the nature of, and motivations for, this support differed widely from party to party. Secondly, there is evidence that, in recent years, minority nationalist parties have become increasingly critical of Europe, although they have not yet abandoned their normative aspirations for a regional Europe. At the same time, however, the salience of the European integration issue has declined markedly in the political projects espoused by minority nationalist parties in Wales and Galicia. The article concludes by arguing that whilst minority nationalist parties may not have turned their back completely on the idea of a Europe of the Regions, a new pragmatism drives these parties' strategies and tactics for meeting their short- and long-term goals.Peer reviewe

Getting undergraduate students to understand the complex institutional workings and policies of the European Union (EU) can be extremely challenging. For this reason, many academics have turned to simulations as a way of bringing EU politics to life for students. This article describes and evaluates the design of a new undergraduate module simulating the Czech Presidency of the European Union. Emphasis is placed on the process of defining learning objectives, designing appropriate assessment methods, and putting teaching strategies to support student learning in place. This design process is too often overlooked in the simulation literature, although it is key to maximizing student learning. As such, the module offers a template of how to organize a simulation and can reduce some of the set-up costs involved in such an exercise. Evaluation of the simulation module finds evidence of student learning on the module, with support for both the innovative forms of assessment devised and the support strategy put in place to help students succeed in meeting the assessment criteria.