Governance and Politics
This section of the website gathers together diverse content including past and upcoming events, published articles, news items and more, all of which pertain to discussions of governance, including proper checks on power, theories of democracy and practical matters of governing modern states. Europaeum Summer School 2010 - Bologna
The Media, Europe & Democracy
The University of Bologna will host the 2010 Europaeum Summer School on The Media, Europe & Democracy. The six day programme Summer School will reflect on relations between the processes of democracy and the role and operation of the media, and questions of identity and public space, across Europe. The five-day programme will also investigate ‘inside’ perceptions of the European Union by European citizens, and ‘outside’ perceptions from non-European actors, and their impact on notions of European citizenship, public debate and participatory democracy. As usual, the event will be multidisciplinary, involving scholars with different backgrounds, including Sociology, International Relations, Law, Economics, Communication Studies, History and Cultural Studies.
Conference: Federalisms - East and West ?
Federalisms - East and West ?
India, Europe, and North America
University of Oxford, 28-30th September
This conference will take place against the background of a world in turmoil. The narrative of global power which has structured Western thinking for at least two centuries (and arguably since ancient Greece) has become dangerously misleading. That narrative posited a world divided between an enlightened, modern, rational and progressive ‘West’ and an unenlightened and backward ‘East’.
Graduate Seminar: Policy-making inside Europe?
This was our third special three-day programme of talks, discussions, interviews and special visits involving those at the sharp end of policy and decision-making in Brussels. It was organised with colleagues in Lisbon to focus on how European policy is made in Brussels in a range of fields and disciplines. The programme included visits to the European Parliament and NATO. Topics included the Making of EU Foreign Policy; The impact of EU Economic Policy; Lisbon Treaty & EU Policy; National Interests & European Politics; EU as a Major Foreign Policy Actor & Internal Market.
Click here for the full Programme
Graduate Seminar: Policy-making inside Europe?
The Europaeum organised the third annual Policy-Making inside Europe ? which took place in Brussels from 21st – 23th June 2010. This three-day programme of talks, discussions, interviews and special visits involving those at the sharp end of policy and decision-making in Brussels, was organised with colleagues in Lisbon to focus on how European policy is made in Brussels in a range of fields and disciplines.
Migration, Political Parties & Public Rhetoric in Contemporary Europe
Leiden University hosted our sixth event in Connecting Europe through History – Experiences and Perceptions of Migrations Project. The Europaeum organised a Graduate Research Workshop on Migration, Political Parties & Public Rhetoric in Contemporary Europe on June 3rd - 5th 2010. This event brought together young scholars from Europaeum universities to explore contemporary European themes. This two-day program investigated relations between Migration and Political Parties in Europe today: the effects of migration and migratory laws and the impact these have on politics and political parties and how political parties respond to migration and migrants. Thus, migration affects the discourse, activities and policy positioning of political parties, as well as patterns of competition and co-operation between political parties. Simultaneously, government policy, political discourse and public opinion, affect processes and rates of migration, as well as relations between migrants and host communities.
Regionalism and Separatism in Europe, 1890-1914
The Institute of History at Leiden University is organising an international conference on 15-16th January 2010, analysing relations between cultural and political regionalism in the period 1890-1914 and the international comparison of these movements in Europe. Scholars from a number of Europaeum institutions will be taking part, including Helsinki, Bologna, Oxford, and of course Leiden.
Federalism in East and West
The Europaeum is organising an international conference next September in Oxford on the theme of Federalisms - East and West, looking at current thinking and concepts of Federalism in Europe as compared with other major world regions, notably India, Canada, and the US.
Politcal Concepts Workshop
The Europaeum Political Concepts Research Group, coordinated now by Professors Michael Freeden (Oxford), Henrik Stenius (Helsinki) and Bo Straath (Helsinki-Stockholm), is set to meet again later this month, with a two-day conference in London exploring ideas relating to current themes and concept-clusters across the group, followed by a workshop in Oxford which will look in more details about where the project should head over the coming two years
Europaeum Summer School 2009 - Paris
Ethics and European Policy-Making
This Summer School looked at the role of ethics in the subject and practice of, the Law and lawyers; Politics and politicians; Economics and economists, sociologists and societal workers, as well as the wider implications on science and medicine. The five-day programme will also investigate the phenomenon of Ethics and its place in Europaean society; the European legal framework in relation to ethical issues; and the particular role of universities, educational institutions and NGOs in advocacy, support and delivery of ethical practices. Speakers included: Professor Farhad Ameli, (Law), Professor Etienne Picard (Public Law, Paris), Professor Jean Philippe Genet (Medival History, Paris), Dr Paul Flather (Politics, The Europaeum).
Europaeum Lecture and Workshop
A one-day workshop on Democracy promotion is being arranged at the Complutense University, Madrid on May 7th.
Elections without Democracy,
Democracy without Elections
Complutense University, Madrid
Centro de Estudios Politicos y Constitucionales
Plaza Marina Espanola 9
7th March, 2008
10.00 - 17.00 + keynote lecture at 17.30
Recent Conference
The Europaeum supported an international conference on the theme of Sovereignty in Europe Today, in Prague on May 29-30th. Constitutional Pluralism in the EU
European Court of Human RightsConstitutional Pluralism in the European Union and Beyond
The Europaeum is co-supporting an international conference Constitutional Pluralism in the European Union and Beyond organised by the Institute for European and Comparative Law, University of Oxford, on March 20-21st 2009 to be held at St Anne's College.
Europaeum Policy Seminar
The Europaeum organised a special 3-day seminar in Brussels on Policy-making in Brussels.
This was our second special three-day programme of talks, discussions, interviews and special visits involving those at the sharp end of policy and decision-making in Brussels. It was organised with colleagues in Lisbon and Leiden to focus on how European policy is made in Brussels in a range of fields and disciplines. The programme included visits to the European Parliament and NATO. Topics included the role of EU Foreign Policy; The impact of EU Economic Policy; Thinking Europe?; How Policy is made in Brussels; and the role of European institutions.
Unravelling the tensions inside Europe
The European Commission is seen as all powerful, rooted in ignorance and prejudice. Here, in extracts from his recent Europeaum Lecture JOHN TEMPLE LANG argues this is based on a misunderstanding of a unique institution that can initiate, but not impose, law. He sets out an agenda for the Commission to recover its self-confidence and institutional self-assurance.
The Commission is not a government, nor a civil service. It is neither a secretariat for the Council of Ministers, or the European Parliament. Nor does it act as a committee of representatives of the Member States. It has no power to impose legislation or create new obligations; this can only be done by the Parliament and the Council acting together. When the Commission acts alone, its only power is to apply rules that the other institutions have adopted, or which are enshrined in the Treaties. Its functions are detailed in the box. The populist myth that the Commission is all-powerful is rooted in ignorance and prejudice.
