Interactive data visualizations for teaching EU politics and governance

Many important data sources on the functioning of the EU and on EU politics more generally are available in an open-access format. These data sources are often used in academic publications. Yet, they are rarely presented in an engaging format for undergraduate and graduate students who might lack the skills to access and rework the data to gain direct insights. Academic publications too often focus on specific question and avoid presentation of general descriptive facts and trends. This paper presents and discusses several applications of interactive data visualization in the field of EU politics and governance. The apps focus on EU legislative production, asylum migration in the EU, EU public opinion and party positions. These apps present the user with intuitive interfaces to explore important trends and make interesting comparisons across time, countries, types of legal acts or migration forms, etc. The apps also provide carefully crafted plots that can be incorporated directly into teaching material. The paper discusses further opportunities for the use of interactive data visualization in teaching EU studies and the challenges in developing engaging teaching resources.