The Importance of Voting in International Organizations: Simulating the Case of the European Union

Simulations can have many advantages over the standard lecture format. This is particularly true with respect to topics that are not as exciting as, say, a major international crisis. The single-class session simulation described in this article takes an important but less than jazzy topic (for students) and brings it alive. It centers on the importance of voting rules, notably in the European Union's Council of Ministers. Students play the roles of government ministers from the fifteen European (EU) countries who must vote on issues using majority and qualified majority voting (QMV) rules. The simulation will teach students about, among other things, the implications of different voting rules and their implications for a country's sovereignty. The article provides a brief description of the importance of voting rules in general and of QMV in particular, guidelines for instructors on how to adapt the simulation to different class sizes, and an informative in-class handout that may be provided to students.