The last half-century has been a defining period for the development of political science in Europe: disciplinary norms have become institutionalized in professional organizations, training units, and research centres; the scholarly community has dramatically grown in size across the continent; the analytical and methodological tools of the discipline are increasingly sophisticated; and the knowledge disseminated under the label "political science" is bigger than it has ever been.
Political Science in Europe takes stock of these developments and reflects on the achievements of the discipline, and the challenges it faces. Is there a distinctive "European" blend of political science? Is the European political science community cohesive and inclusive? How does the discipline cope with the neoliberalisation of academia, and the diffusion of illiberal politics?
Leading and up-and-coming political scientists answer these questions by discussing the discipline's key concepts and intellectual trends, its professional structures, and its relationship with its social, economic, and political environment.
Ivar Bleiklie is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Bergen, Norway. He has been the director of the Norwegian Research Center in Organization and Management and a visiting scholar/professor at Stanford University, Harvard University, Boston College, and Science Po. Bleiklie has directed and participated in a number of comparative projects on higher education policies and organizational change in Western Europe, and he has published a number of books, book chapters, and articles about social services, health policy, and policy and organizational change in higher education.
Marleen Brans is Professor at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute and Treasurer of the International Public Policy Association. Her research focuses on the production and use of policy advice, with special attention on the uptake of scientific research and the role of ministerial advisers.
Shardia Briscoe-Palmer is an early career academic fellow at De Montfort University in Leicester, United Kingdom. Her research specialisms intersect across the politics of gender, race, and social injustices. Her research focus explores the politics of black masculinity while (de)constructing postcolonial identities. Her research interests also include academic diversity and inclusivity challenges faced by minority groups within higher education. She completed her doctorate at the University of Birmingham in political science and international studies. She is a strong advocate on why and how race and its intersections must be addressed adequately in the discipline.
Terrell Carver is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. He first attended an ECPR Joint Sessions in 1978 and in subsequent years has been a Workshop Director and Official Representative. He has published extensively on Critical Theory, Gender Theory, and Philosophy of the Social Sciences, and regularly teaches Discourse and Visual Analysis
for the IPSA Methods School in Singapore.
Russell J Dalton is Research Professor at the Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine. His research focuses on the role of citizens in the democratic process, involving the topics of political culture, electoral politics, and political representation. Dalton’s most recent books include The Good Citizen (2020), Political Realignment—Economics, Culture and Electoral Change (2018), The Participation Gap (2017), and The Civic Culture Transformed (2015). He has received a Fulbright Professorship at the University of Mannheim, a Barbra Streisand Center Fellowship, German Marshall Research Fellowship, and a POSCO Fellowship at the East/West Center.
Kris Deschouwer is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research focuses on political parties, elections, regionalism and federalism, democracy in divided societies, and political representation. He is the central coordinator of the PartiRep research project on Political Participation and Representation in Modern Democracies, http://www.PARTIREP.eu. Kris was co-editor of the European Journal of Political Research (2003–2009) and authored The Politics of Belgium (Palgrave, 2012). He was ECPR Chair, 2018–2021.
Diego Garzia is an SNSF Eccellenza Professor of Political Science at the University of Lausanne, and also a recurring Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in Fiesole. He held a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the European University Institute (2012–2014) and an SNSF Ambizione Fellowship at the University of Lucerne (2017–2019). He currently serves as founding convenor of the ECPR Research Network on Voting Advice Applications and as a member of the Scientific Committee of the Italian National Election Study (ITANES). With ECPR Press, he has already published Matching Voters with Parties and Candidates (2014).
Luciana Alexandra Ghica is Associate Professor of International Relations and European Studies at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest, where she also acts as founding director of the Centre for International Cooperation and Development Studies (IDC). She studied political science and international relations at the University of Bucharest, Central European University (Budapest), and Oxford University, where she specialised in the analysis of international cooperation processes, with a focus on the institutional and discursive impact of democratisation on policymaking. Author of several studies on democratisation, foreign policy, and international cooperation, she is also the editor of the first Romanian encyclopaedia of the European Union (c. 2005, 2nd ed. 2006, 3rd ed. 2007).
Virginie Guiraudon is CNRS research director at the Sciences Po Center for European and Comparative studies in Paris. She holds a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1997). She has been Marie Curie Professor at the EUI and a visiting professor and scholar in various universities (Princeton, UCLA, Doshisha University in Kyoto, the CEPC in Madrid). Her current work focuses in part on European integration. She is coeditor (with Adrian Favell) of Sociology of the European Union (2011). She has been very active in developing European studies, notably as executive board member successively of EUSA, the Council for European Studies, and the ECPR Standing Group on the European Union. She is the 2013 recipient of the ECPR Mattei Dogan Prize in European Political Sociology.
Anton Hemerijck is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Between 2001 and 2009, he directed the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), while holding a professorship in Comparative European Social Policy at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Over the past two decades, he advised the European Commission and several EU presidencies on European social policy developments. Important book publications include Why We Need a New Welfare State with Gøsta Esping-Andersen, Duncan Gallie, and John Myles (2002) and the monograph Changing Welfare States (2013). His most recent book publication is the edited volume The Uses of Social Investment (2017).
Kate Mattocks is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom. Her research interests lie in two main areas, the politics of cultural policy and academic labour. Her cultural policy research focuses on the governance of policies to do with the arts and culture, with a particular focus on cultural identity and diversity. Her research on academic labour has examined the experiences of doctoral researchers and early career academics in the United Kingdom. She holds a doctorate from City, University of London (2017) and has held teaching positions at Liverpool Hope University and Richmond University.
Yves Mény is Emeritus President of the European University Institute (2002–2009) and former president of the Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies in Pisa and IUSS, Pavia. He is also former chair of the ECPR Executive Committee (2000). His academic career includes positions in Rennes, Paris II, Sciences Po, and the European University Institute. He has taught in many American and European Universities and is an honorary member of the Irish Academy. He has published extensively in the field of French and comparative politics, public policies, and administration. Later, his publications have focused on corruption and populism. In 2019, his book on Imperfect democracies was simultaneously published in Italy and France (Il Mulino and Presses de SciencesPo).
Svein Michelsen is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory at the University of Bergen. His main interests are focused on higher education and vocational education and training systems and policies in Western European countries.
Liza Mügge is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, where, she also chairs the Taskforce on Social Safety and coleads the Diverse Europe research group of the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES). She is cofounding editor of the European Journal of Politics & Gender and PI of a five-year project on political representation and diversity funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).
Pippa Norris is a comparative political scientist who has taught at Harvard University for a quarter of a century. Her research compares public opinion and elections, democratic institutions and cultures, gender politics, and political communications in many countries worldwide. Major honours include APSA’s Charles Merriam Award, fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the PSA’s Isaiah Berlin Lifetime Achievement Award, IPSA’s Karl Deutsch Award, the 2011 Johan Skytte prize in political science, and the ARC’s 2011 Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship. She has published around fifty books. The most recent include Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism (authored with Inglehart, 2019) and Electoral Integrity in America (coedited, 2019).
David Paternotte is Associate Professor in Sociology at the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. He is also vice dean for International Affairs and chair of the interdisciplinary master in gender studies that unites the French-speaking universities. After research on same-sex marriage advocacy and LGBT activism, he studied anti-gender campaigns and attacks on academic
freedom in Europe. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, he has authored the book Revendiquer le 'mariage gay': Belgique, France, Espagne (2011). He is co-director of the book series Global Queer Politics (Palgrave) and Genre(s) & Sexualité(s) (Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles).
Alexander H Trechsel is Professor of Political Science at the University of Lucerne. He obtained his PhD in Political Science at the University of Geneva in 1999. From 2005 to 2016 he held the Swiss Chair in Federalism and Democracy at the European University Institute in Fiesole. In addition, he was from 2013 to 2016 Head of the Department for Political and Social Sciences at the same institute. Also, from 2012 to 2015, he was Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
Mieke Verloo is Professor of Comparative Politics and Inequality Issues at Radboud University in the Netherlands, and Non-Residential Permanent Fellow at the IWM, Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. She is the winner of the 2015 ECPG Gender and Politics Career Achievement Award. She was scientific director of large research projects on gender equality policymaking
in Europe, and has extensive consultancy and training experience on gender mainstreaming and intersectionality for several European governments and institutions. Publications from her work on opposition to feminist politics include the edited volume on Varieties of opposition to gender equality in Europe (2018).
