About the conference
The Council of European Studies (CES) is the organiser of the International Conference of Europeanists, which is the world’s largest annual gathering of Europe experts. Convened regularly for over thirty years, it is a three-day event which typically attracts over one thousand participants. Selected through a highly competitive review process, presenters at CES’s international conference come from every corner of the world and represent a full range of area specialties in both the social sciences and humanities.
The theme of the 2019 conference is sovereignty, which is at the crux of current developments in Europe and at the center of political debate. More about the conference theme, programme highlights and full conference programme.
PLATO papers
The following three papers will be discussed at the conference:
European identity at the Union’s borders: A study of member state experts deployed to Frontex and EASO in Lesvos and Catania
Gil Thompson, PLATO PhD researcher (ESR1), Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies (BTS)
Abstract
This article studies the effects of novelty and intensity on European socialisation. The population in question consists of national officials, also known as Member State Experts (MSEs), seconded to European Union institutions. The sample studied consists of police and asylum officials deployed to Frontex and EASO, respectively, in support of the Greek border and asylum procedures at the Lesvos migration hotspot. It is first shown that there are significant socialisation results for the sample studied. It is then demonstrated how the novelty and intensity of the secondment is responsible for this socialisation effect. The article is based on original ethnographic fieldwork and audio-recorded interviews with the seconded officials.
Panel details
Panel 196: Attitudes and beliefs regarding Europeanization (Friday, 21 June)
Why do we need effective parliament(s) in curbing corruption?! or Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Emilija Tudzarovska Gjorgjievska, PLATO PhD researcher (ESR8), Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
Abstract
Corruption can significantly affect the efficiency, fairness, and legitimacy of state activities (Rose Ackerman, 2010). Furthermore, the current understanding of the complex problem of corruption remains limited in understating the causal links between the factors and anti-corruption policy effectiveness. In its attempts to address this "deviance of the norms" problem, the literature on corruption also suggest that “democratic governance must establish explicit policies to limit corrupt incentives, and in a key mean of public oversight is to keep governments accountable” (Rose-Ackerman, 1999). However, are the national parliaments effective in exercising its legitimate mandate to oversight the work of the anti-corruption bodies and by thus to hold governments accountable, while also representing the citizens’ views via its legitimate elected members within the Parliaments? What responsibility has the European Parliament and the national parliament(s) in scrutinizing the anti-corruption policy and governmental strategies to fight corruption?
From (institutional) normative perspective, this paper aims to zoom into the normative role(s) of the European Parliament, the national parliaments in curbing corruption and the available monitoring mechanism on national level in countries with two different EU membership status (Macedonia and Croatia). Based on comparative data analysis (tracing evidence in GRECO reports, EU Progress Reports, SELDI Reports, European Semester assessments etc. complemented by qualitative data (experts interviews)) this paper aims to provide arguments on the normative role of the parliaments in curbing corruption. It also aims to provide arguments on the necessary conditions that the parliament(s) have to meet in the effective fight against corruption.
Panel details
Panel 333: The evolution of EU institutions (Saturday, 22 June)
Criticised and yet legitimised: The EU Emissions Trading Scheme as a case study of controversial legitimation
Claire Godet, PLATO PhD researcher (ESR6), ARENA, University of Oslo
Abstract
In the last decade, the European Union (EU) has suffered criticisms and setbacks from all sides. Despite these attacks, the EU has managed to ride the waves and, so far, has survived the storm. Analysing the negotiations of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), this paper explores how highly criticised political systems can maintain relatively good levels of support: why would actors keep legitimising a system they criticise?
The ETS is attacked by stakeholders from all stripes but, despite the established failures, it has progressed and is now EU’s main climate policy. The most popular theories in political science cannot successfully explain this paradox. On one hand, theories that shed light on institutional behaviour tend to neglect actors’ disparity and conceive them as a homogenous body; and on the other hand, individualist theories can hardly elucidate why so many divergent wills would justify the same system. The objective of this paper is to understand how a controversial and criticised political system can be legitimised nonetheless. The first section introduces theoretical tools borrowed from pragmatic sociology that can offer a new perspective on legitimacy and legitimation. After developing the case study in the second section, the paper follows with an empirical analysis of stakeholders’ legitimation of the ETS and demonstrates that a system’s legitimacy does not rest on the norms it promotes as much as on the grammar of commonality it realises.
Panel details
Panel 290: Governance across scales (Saturday, 22 June)
Contributions by PLATO supervisors
Some PLATO supervisors will also attend the CES conference with papers (check the preliminary programme for details):
- Guido Tiemann, Institute for Advanced Studies
- Projection and bias in EP elections: A simulation study (paper)
- Chris Bickerton, POLIS, University of Cambridge
- From popular to pooled sovereignty, and back again? Competing logics of rule in the United Kingdom’s membership and exit of the European Union (paper)
- Europe’s crisis of legitimacy: Governing by rules and ruling by numbers in the Eurozone (book panel)
- Lessons from a decade of crises: What next for Europe? (roundtable)
- Julie Smith, POLIS, University of Cambridge
- Burning down the house? When democratic and rule of law backsliding hits the European Union (roundtable)
- Challenges to democracy in Europe: declining political trust, declining turnout and their impact on satisfaction with democracy in multi-level political systems (co-authored paper)
Where: |
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid |
When: | 20-22 June 2019 |
Organiser: | Council for European Studies (CES) |
More info: |