Conference talk: ‘Democratisation through Deliberation’

The European Parliament’s (EP) primary raison d’être is the representation of the EU citizens, providing its members with the necessary argumentative basis to claim: There is no democratic legitimacy in EU politics without us! – Whereas this claim is the same today as it was almost 70 years ago, the…

Continue Reading

New article: Becoming Europe’s Parliament (JCMS)

The European Parliament (EP) – today one of the most powerful actors at EU level – was intended to be a mere consultative assembly at the founding of the European Communities. In my research project on the institutional evolution of the EP prior to its first direct elections in 1979,…

Continue Reading

The informal construction of Europe

Informal dimensions of European integration have received limited academic attention to date, despite their historical and contemporary importance. Particularly studies in European integration history, while frequently mentioning informal processes, have as yet rarely conceptualised the study of informality in European integration, and thus fail usually to systematically analyse conditions, impact…

Continue Reading

Joining the UACES Executive Committee as elected member

UACES is a vibrant global organisation for academics, students and practitioners interested in all aspects of Europe and the European Union. Amongst its extensive activities, UACES holds and supports a wide range of conferences and events, co-publishes various journals and book series, supports research networks as well as individual fieldwork,…

Continue Reading

New indices, new indicators, more data: New V-Dem dataset is out

The new dataset of the global data collection project ‘Varieties of Democracy’ (V-Dem) is out and can be downloaded free of charge here (SPSS, STATA, CSV, R): https://www.v-dem.net/en/data/data-version-9/. The V-Dem data is used by scholars, journalists and policy makers around the world in order to understand current and past developments…

Continue Reading