Democracy & Citizenship

I’ve been spending the week at the UACES conference in Prague, talking about lots of things to do with European Studies. However, one the things that didn’t come up very much was UK-EU relations. It’s almost as if most people don’t have it on their minds. The moment it did come up was during the […]

By Karolina Borońska-Hryniewiecka (Polish Academy of Science & Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne) & Jan Kotýnek Krotký (Masaryk University) On 9 May 2026, we celebrate Europe Day and the fourth anniversary of the closing event of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) hailed as a landmark transnational democratic experiment. During CoFoE hundreds of […]

Although I am currently immersed in the London local elections — speaking with residents, listening to concerns, and experiencing democracy at its most immediate level — I didn’t want to miss the chance to reflect on Hungary’s 12 April vote. I have analysed Hungarian politics for many years, and this election is among the most […]

By Dimitris Bouris (University of Amsterdam), Saul Kenny (Article 109), Hanna L. Mühlenhoff (University of Amsterdam) In our recent article for JCMS we set out to queer the European Union Foreign and Security Policy. But what does this mean? Queer, once a slur, is now a popular term that captures the variety of sexual orientations […]

By Marius Guderjan (Centre for British Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Mario Kölling (Department of Political Science, Spanish National Distance Education University) Although the COVID-19 pandemic seems something of the past and meanwhile overshadowed by other crises, we should still remember its profound impact on public health, people, employment and businesses. In 2020, the real […]

By Nicola Nones (Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto) and Melle Scholten (Department of Public Administration at the University of Twente) The Eurozone crisis and the subsequent implementation of austerity measures in various member states of the union was in many ways a watershed moment for contemporary populism. […]

By Monika Brusenbauch Meislová (Masaryk University, Czech Republic), Julie Smith (Cambridge University, UK) and Ed Turner (Aston University, UK) As we discuss in our recent article in the Journal of Common Market Studies, a proposed youth mobility scheme between the European Union and the United Kingdom ought to have been an easy win. After all, […]

Citizens’ participation is often framed as a conditio sine qua non for healthy democracies. It serves as a primary system of checks and balances, represents one of the most central and meaningful ways for citizens to contribute to collective decision-making, and is argued to be the main mechanism through which citizens learn, discuss and form […]

By Andrea Pareschi (University of Bologna and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) Across EU member states, Eurosceptic parties – especially on the radical right – are thriving. Not long ago, they had only limited support and were stuck in opposition. But in recent years, many of them have ‘come in from the cold’ and gained […]

By Desmond Dinan (George Mason University) and Sophia Russack (Centre for European Policy Studies) The reappointment of Ursula von der Leyen in 2024 was more than just continuity at the top of the EU executive. It revealed how power is distributed in Brussels, between the European Council and European Parliament (EP), between national governments and […]