News

Early career researchers gathered at the EUI in Florence to discuss how large datasets on courts can advance understanding of judicial behaviour.

Trym Nohr Fjørtoft has successfully defended his PhD thesis Borders of Technocracy. Expertise, democracy, and the legitimacy of unelected bodies.

Together with Partnerforum, Helene Sjursen organised an event about the EU as a security actor in light of the war in Ukraine.

Empirical scholarship on law and courts is generating datasets and research methods at an unprecedented pace. The purpose of this one-week workshop hosted at the EUI by the IUROPA network - in collaboration with the EUI, ARENA and PluriCourts - is to assist early-career researchers with the uptake of new research tools.

ARENA's Anke Stefanie Schwarzkopf has successfully defended her PhD thesis Values versus interests? The EU’s approach to multilateral negotiations at the United Nations.

ARENA offers MA student grants to students writing their master thesis in spring 2023 on a topic related to ARENA's research areas.

ARENA's Claire Godet has successfully defended her PhD thesis Understanding the Legitimation of Controversial Institutions: Stakeholder Critique and Legitimation of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

A position for a 4-year research fellowship as PhD candidate is available at ARENA. The research fellow will contribute to ongoing research on judicial politics and the rule of law in Europe.

ARENA offers two full-time, paid PhD positions as part of the ENROL project on enforcing the rule of law.

Differentiation is key to understanding the European Union. This June, ARENA offers PhD students access to state-of-the-art research on all EU relevant aspects of differentiation.

In a new project, researchers will examine what the EU can do to prevent democratic backsliding among its own member states. – We are happy that we can finally launch the project, says ARENA Director Daniel Naurin.  

'The non-democratic disease may spread', said Adam Bodnar, former Polish Ombudsman for Citizen Rights at the 2021 ARENA-lecture. He underlined that the Polish lesson to Europe is to ensure independent institutions.

'Democracy is at stake for people in Poland, but the non-democratic process could also become an existential threat for the entire EU', says Adam Bodnar, former Polish Ombudsman for Citizen Rights. Bodnar will hold the ARENA lecture on 11 November.

A first-of-its-kind ARENA project compares political attitudes about internal-market governance in the EU and the US. 

Through the project DiCE, ARENA has launched the world's first comprehensive online directory on differentiation and differentiated integration - DifferentiGate. 

In May 2021, ARENA organised a new PhD course, gathering doctoral students and leading scholars to discuss a differentiated Europe and its implications. 

The TiGRE project is organizing a series of research seminars to the scholarly community and the general public. 

ARENA's Stine Hesstvedt has successfully defended her PhD thesis The Politics of Expert Advice: A study of governments’ use of policy advisory commissions in Norway, 1972-2018.

The European Union is engaged in a large-scale debate on its future nature and direction. The role and importance of theoretically informed and empirically grounded research in that process is essential, as was made very clear at EU3D’s opening conference in Rome.

Although European states such as Norway or Switzerland have different kinds of relationships with the EU, they are all becoming increasingly integrated into it, without any formal say. These states have given up national sovereignty without any compensation at EU level, and the UK’s debate should be mindful of the hegemonic nature of relations between the EU and its closely associated non-members.  

Can the Brits actually decide if they want out of the EU on the 23rd of June?

While awaiting collective European action, the refugees are thrown back and forth between states protecting their borders.

The truism is that crises create more integration. Although this has been the case in the past, there is no guarantee that it will be so in the future. Now the crises are numerous, and they also reveal the weaknesses of the EU structure.

Why has Norway ended up in a very precarious democratic situation because of its relationship with the EU? Why is the UK prime Minister saying, 'don't look to Norway'?

Christopher Lord and John Erik Fossum contribute to PADEMIA's weblectures on parliamentary democracy, which are now available online.