Sussex European Institute

Upcoming and Recent Events

The Sussex European Institute hosts a variety of workshops, seminars and events throughout the year.

  

Upcoming Events

SEI Research Seminars

All SEI seminars are open to all staff and students and held in Freeman, G31, 14.00-15.50. 

  • Anti-elite politics and emotional reactions to socio-economic problems: Experimental evidence on ‘pocketbook anger’ from France, Germany & US with Paul Marx (Duisberg-Essen & Oxford) Wednesday 12th February 2020
  • Expatriate Citizens and Parties Abroad with Sue Collard & Paul Webb (Sussex) Wednesday 19th February 2020 
  • The Post-Brexit effect in media coverage with Marino de Luca (Sussex) Wednesday 4th March 2020 
  • European Conservatives & Reformists with Martin Steven (Lancaster) Wednesday 11th March 2020 (postponed due to illness)
  • Is there any way out of here? UK food safety legislation, trade and devolution with Emily Lydgate & Chloe Anthony (Sussex Law School) Wednesday 25th March 2020

 

Past Events
SEI Research Seminars

All SEI seminars are open to all staff and students and held in Freeman, F39, 14.00-15.50.

  • Populists in government, liberal democracy & indivdual rights in Europe: Empirical evidence from 31 countries, 1998-2018 with Nathan Schackow (University of Innsbruck) Wednesday 9th October 201
  • Unity and Divisions on Departmental Select Committees: a Brexit Effect with Dr. Richard Whitaker (University of Leicester) Wednesday 13th November 2019 
  • The transition game: Understanding informal practices and actor trajectories during the transition to a market economy in successor Yugoslav states with Tena Prelac (Sussex) Wednesday 27th November 2019
  • Sanctioning democratic backsliding with International Organisations: Evidence from the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Dr. Sabina Avdagic (Sussex) & Dr. Uli Sedelmeier (LSE) Wednesday 4th December 2019
  • Convergence, capitalist diversity or political volatility? Immigration policies in Western Europe with Dr. James Hampshire (Sussex) Wednesday 11th December 2019

All SEI seminars are open to all staff and students and held in Freeman, G22, 14.00-15.50.

  • 'It’s complicated! Labour, the SPD, the PS and the European Union’ with Dr Isabelle Hertner (Kings College London) Wednesday 14th February 2018
  • 'Scala Civium: Citizenship Templates Post-Brexit and the European Union’s Duty to Protect EU Citizens' with Prof. Dora Kostakopoulou (University of Warwick) Wednesday 21 March 2018
  • 'Brexit, the border and the peace process on the island of Ireland' with Dr Katy Howard (Queens University Belfast) Wednesday 18th April 2018
  • 'Brexit and the UK Parliament' with Prof. Adam Cygan (University of Leicester) Wednesday 2nd May 2018
  • 'What does the seaside tell us about British politics today?' with Charlie Dannreuther (University of Leeds) Wednesday 14th November 2018
  • 'What do they talk about when they talk about Europe? Understanding the Far Right’s Idea of Europe in the French Front National and Italian Social Movement'/Alleanza Nazionale' with Marta Lorimer (LSE) Wednesday 21st November 2018
  • 'Brexit and the UK Parliament' with Adam Cygan (University of Leicester) Wednesday 12th December 2018 
SEI Research Seminars 

All SEI seminars are open to all staff and students and held in Freeman, G22, 14.00-15.50.

  • 'Responses to Brexit in Germany, France and Ireland' with Kai Oppermann, Sue Collard and Neil Dooley (University of Sussex) Wednesday 4 October 2017 
  • 'The EU Enlargement: from a European policy to a national instrument.' with Gentian Elezi  (Cambridge University) Wednesday 25 October 2017
  • 'A dialogue amongst deaf? Interaction between constitutional judges and political elites in electoral reforms in Italy (2013-2017) with Emanuele Massetti (University of Surrey) Wednesday 22 November 2017
 SEI Workshops

Reconfiguring Care Infrastructures: Austerity and Innovation in European Welfare Services.

Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th of November 2017

This international workshop will explore the reconfiguration of health and welfare in different European settings.  Presentations will address the ways in which austerity policies, welfare reforms or healthcare innovations relocate or relegate the work and practice of care in particular settings, though we hope the event will allow for comparison across different experiences from across Europe. The concept of the ‘chronic care infrastructure’ (Langstrup 2013) has been used to think about the ways in which health services are embedded and linked with other services, and rely on particular distributions of care/work across formal and informal providers. In this it has something in common with ‘care configurations’ (Lyon and Glucksman 2008) and with older work on welfare regimes (Esping Anderson 1990). Like feminist discussions of welfare policy, we propose paying attention to distributions of ‘visible and invisible work’ (Star & Strauss 1999) to gain insights into the normative shifts in the valuation of care tasks in the context of austerity and the changing ‘burden of treatment’ in chronic disease (e.g. May et al 2014). We are also interested in contributions that consider the role of care innovations – technical or otherwise – as tools of welfare transformation, whether they are seen as contributing to cost containment or not (e.g. Pols and Willems 2011; Mort, Roberts and Callen 2013).

We are delighted that Professor Jeanette Pols (University of Amsterdam) and Brit Ross Winthereik (University of Copenhagen) have both agreed to present a keynote at the workshop.

This workshop is initiated by the Department of Sociology, University of Sussex, with support from the University of Copenhagen and University of Urbino.

For more information and took book a place please visit the event website

 

Feminist and Queer perspectives on Brexit

Friday 17th November, G47A, Freeman Building

On 23 June 2016 the people of the United Kingdom voted in a referendum narrowly in favour of leaving the European Union. This historic decision, which will end the UK’s more than four-decade long membership of the EU in 2019, has important consequences for all European citizens; consequences that will be felt far into the future. Some citizens will meet the challenges that lie ahead with resilience and will take full advantage of the opportunities that a return of national sovereignty and a new form of politics promise. Other citizens may be less fortunate and may see the rights and protections offered by the EU starkly withdrawn, leaving them more vulnerable and with diminished horizons and fewer prospects than previously.

The Feminist and Queer Perspectives on Brexit Project examines the opportunities and challenges, the rights and wrongs, and the prospects and risks of the Brexit debate from a particular perspective – that of gender and sexuality. While much is being written about Brexit from legal, political, social and economic perspectives, there has as yet been relatively little debate about Brexit from a gendered and queer point of view and little analysis of the effects of Brexit on women and gender/sexual minorities who have historically been more marginalised and whose voices have tended to be less audible in political debates – both nationally and at the European level.  This project will in essence explore how Brexit might change the equality, human rights and social justice landscape, but from the viewpoint of women and gender/sexual minorities. We envisage that Brexit will impact upon women and gender/sexual minorities in a variety of ways and will potentially present particular challenges for these groups. 

Contributors to these publications will gather at a workshop at the University of Sussex on 17 of November 2017 to discuss their proposed contributions. 

SEI Workshop: Extraterritoriality of EU Law and Human Rights After Lisbon: Scope and Boundaries

Thursday 13th and Friday 14th July 2017

University of Sussex

The Sussex European Institute will host a research workshop organised by Dr Samantha Velluti, Reader in Law and member of the European Law and Policy Research Group at Sussex Law School and Dr Vassilis Tzevelekos, Senior Lecturer in Law at Liverpool Law School.  The workshop entitled ‘The Extraterritoriality of EU Law and Human Rights After Lisbon: Scope and Boundaries’, will be one of the first of its kind to explore the extraterritoriality of EU law in a comprehensive and cross-sectoral manner.   It will bring together legal scholars and policy-makers from across the UK and Europe to explore the EU’s extraterritorial conduct and the extraterritorial effects of EU law in relation to human rights in light of the changes introduced by the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon.  If you are interested in attending and have a strong interest in the areas detailed in the programme below, please email Samantha Velluti: S.M.Velluti@sussex.ac.uk

SEI Workshop: Muddling Through - the impact of European crisis on Euroscepticism

Tuesday 4th July 2017

One Great George Street, SW1P 3AE, London From the Eurozone crisis to the migration crisis, the EU has “muddled through” various crises. But these crises have shaped the public’s attitude towards the EU and mobilised political parties in opposition to the EU. Although it has been suggested that opposition towards the EU is a temporary trend, Euroscepticism now seems to have become persistent and lasting. Open Europe and academics from the University of Sussex-based European Parties Elections and Referendums Network (EPERN) in partnership with the European Social and Research Council 'UK in a Changing Europe' initiative, are bringing together prominent speakers to discuss Euroscepticism and to consider:

  • The effect of the various crises on Euroscepticism across Europe (including in France, Germany, and Poland);
  • How Euroscepticism in Europe might impact the Brexit negotiations;
  • Where Brexit has impacted Euroscepticism.
SEI Workshop: Euroscepticism in Europe after Brexit: Aftermaths and Consequences 

Friday 30 June 2017 This workshop was sponsored by the ESRC ‘UK in a Changing Europe’ programme and the European Parties Elections and Referendums Network (EPERN). The workshop programme is available here.

SEI Workshop: What does Germany want? The cris(e)s of the European Union and the role of Germany
Friday 12 May 2017

In recent years, Germany has threatened to displace Greece in popular imagination as the ‘villain’ of the eurozone crisis. While images of ‘lazy PIIGS’ remain influential, Germany has been increasingly portrayed as iron-fisted and intransigent, and is understood to have uniquely and perhaps deliberately benefitted from the euro at the inevitable expense of its fellow member states. The centrality of Germany in the origins, escalation, and intractability of the crisis has become more and more commonplace in ongoing debates. Yet, just as competing perspectives have done with Greece, such ‘narratives of blame’ have presented an over-simplified and exaggerated understanding of Germany’s role in the eurozone crisis. Recent research has begun to expose important limits to the argument that Germany is responsible for the systemic faults of the eurozone. Although much excellent work has been done in identifying the importance of hierarchy, imbalances, and divergences in the origins and escalation of the eurozone crisis, critical scholars have not yet adequately recognised that these factors cannot be explained simply in relation to German dominance alone.   This workshop explored the following questions. What, if any, role has Germany had in the crises facing the eurozone and the European Union? What does Germany want? How can we explain Germany’s place in an EU embattled by the eurozone, refugee, and Brexit crisis? By rethinking the role of Germany and the eurozone crisis, intriguing questions about the nature of Germanys relationship with the EU, notions of hierarchy, power, divergence, and crisis in Europe are opened up and require attention.

  • Neil Dooley (University of Sussex) - Welcome and Introduction
  • Lothar Funk (Hochschule Düsseldorf) – Germany and the crises in E(M)U: A German Europe versus a European Germany or something in between
  • Charlotte Galpin (University of Birmingham/University of Copenhagen) – From the Euro Crisis to Brexit: Crises and European Identity in German Media Discourse
  • Magnus Ryner (Kings College London) Growth and International Institutions: Germany, America and a Post-Bretton Woods Collective Action Problem?
  • Simon Bulmer (University of Sheffield) Germany’s role in the handling of the European monetary and refugee crisis
  • Dan Hough, Kai Oppermann (University of Sussex) – Roundtable Discussion: What might the German Federal Election mean for the cris(e)s of the EU?
SEI Research Seminar: The EU's Refugee Crisis

The SEI Research Seminar with Ezel Tabur (University of Aberdeen) took place on Wednesday 5 April 2017 

SEI Research Seminar: The CBI and Brexit

The SEI Research Seminar with Scott Lavery (University of Sheffield) took place on Wednesday 22 March 2017 

SEI Research Seminar: The European Union's Anti-Corruption Enlargement Conditionality: Comparing the Czech Republic, Romania and Macedonia

The SEI Research Seminar with Liljana Cvetanoska (University of Sussex) took place on Wednesday 8 March 2017 

SEI Research Seminar: Les Républicains and the 2017 French Presidential Election: The unintended consequences of open primaries’

The SEI Research Seminar with Agnes Alexandre-Collier (University of Bourgogne) took place on Wednesday 22 February 2017.

SEI Workshop: The Politics of Brexit (II)

Thursday 1 December 2016

This workshop was the second in a series of workshops at the Sussex European Institute examining the ‘Politics of Brexit’. The aim of the series of workshops is to begin to track the potential trajectory of the Brexit process and to start understanding the conceptual tools and frameworks that we need to develop to fully explain the process. This workshop focused on both the particular challenges faced by the UK’s political system and on the wider challenges that Brexit mounts for Europe.

  • Welcome and Introductions - Paul Taggart (Sussex)
  • Helen Wallace (LSE/SEI) ‘Europe at a Crossroads’
  • Scott James (King’s College London) ‘The Politics of Brexit: Brexit: The Challenge for UK Governance’
  • Tim Bale (Queen Mary University of London) ‘Where Brexit leaves Britain's parties’
SEI Workshop: Party Leadership and Intra-Party Politics in Europe

Friday 4 November 2016

  • Nick Aylott (Soderturn) &  Niklas Bolin (Mid Sweden) ‘The scope of party leadership’.
  • Allan Sikk (UCL) 'Candidate  Turnover and Party System Change in Central and Eastern Europe'
  • Paul Webb (Sussex), Monica Poletti (QMUL) & Tim Bale (QMUL) 'What do grassroots members do for their parties during election campaigns – and why do they do it? Explaining the activism of British party members in the general election of 2015'
  • Jake Watts (Sussex) ‘Corbyn and Labour Party Democracy: The cultural politics of party organisation’
SEI Annual General Meeting

The SEI Annual General Meeting took place on Wednesday 26 October 2016.

SEI Workshop: The Politics of Brexit (I): British Politics, European Dilemmas and Inernational Relations

Thursday 15 September 2016

  • Welcome and Introductions - Paul Taggart (Sussex)
  • Brigid Fowler (SEI Practitioner Fellow): Looking Forward From the  Referendum
  • Sue Millns (Sussex): Untying the Ties that Bind. Legal Implications of Brexit
  • James Hampshire (Sussex): The Politics of Immigration
  • Juliet Kaarbo (Edinburgh): Brexit Politics and IR: Potential Research on
  • Kai Oppermann (Sussex): British Foreign Policy after ‘Brexit’
  • Jamie Gaskarth (Birmingham): The UK and EU Security after Brexit: Bringing the Regional Back In.
SEI Research Seminar:Trajectories of European Environmental Governance over Time

The SEI Research Seminar with Professor Anthony Zito (University of Newcastle) took place on Wednesday 13 April 2016.

SEI Research Seminar: Electoral Success of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey: the Role of Political Appeal and Organization

The SEI Research Seminar with Toygar Baykan (SEI) took place on Wednesday 6 April 2016.

SEI Research Seminar: 'Populism, Technocracy and the Crisis of Party Democracy’

The SEI Research Seminar with Dr Chris Bickerton (University of Cambridge) took place on Wednesday 2 March 2016.

 

Brexit Open Seminar Series 2016

Tuesday 8 March Brexit, Migration and Mobility

Dr James Hampshire (Department of Politics) and Prof L. Alan Winters (Department of Economics and CEO, Migrating Out of Poverty Research Partnership Consortium) 

 

Brexit Open Seminar Series 2016

Tuesday 15 March 2016 The Politics of the Referendum and Brexit

Prof Paul Taggart (Department of Politics and Sussex European Institute) and Dr Kai Oppermann (Department of Politics) 

 

SEI Roundtable:The UK Referendum on EU Membership

The SEI Roundtable took place on Wednesday 24 March 2016. 

SEI Research Seminar: Emotion and politics during the July 2015 Greek referendum campaign

The SEI Research Seminar with Dr Lamprini Rori (Bournmouth University) took place on Wednesday 18 November 2015.

SEI Research Seminar: Euroscepticism after the Crisis: Beyond Party Systems, Across Civil Society

The SEI Research Seminar with Dr Simona Guerra (University of Leicester/SEI) took place on Wednesday 21 October 2015.

SEI Roundtable: The European Refugee Crisis

The SEI Roundtable with Dr Elizabeth David-Barrett, Dr James Hampshire, Professor Alan Winters (University of Sussex) took place on Wednesday 23 September 2015.

SEI Research Seminar: The Impact of the Social Media on Marginal Seats in the South of England During the 2015 General Election Campaign 

The SEI Research seminar with Ivor Gabor (University of Sussex) took place on Wednesday 18 March 2015.

SEI Research Seminar: Je suis Charlie: A Debate on Freedom and Identity in France

The SEI Research seminar with Prof Sue Collard (Politics), Dr Ahmad Ghouri (Law),  Dr Shane Brighton (International Relations), Dr Suraj Lakhani (Sociology) at University of Sussex Je suis Charlie: A Debate on Freedom and Identity in France Wednesday 28 January 2015

SEI Round Table: 2015 UK General Election

The SEI Roundtable with Francis McGowan, Dr Emily Robinson, Prof Paul Taggart,  (University of Sussex) took place on Wednesday 21 January 2015.

SEI Round Table: Universal Services and Citizenship

The SEI Roundtable with Dr Jim Davies, Associate Professor of Law (University of Northampton) and Prof Erika Szyszczak, European Law (University of Sussex) took place on Wednesday 19 November 2014.

SEI Research Seminar: Independence Referendums and Putative Citizenship - The Scottish Referendum in a Global Perspective 

The SEI Research seminar with Dr Ruvi Zieger, University of Reading took place on Wednesday 29 October 2014.

SEI Research Seminar: Defining Effective Responses to Environmental Harm in a Multilevel Context—Exploring Interaction and Potential Synergies between EU and International Levels

The SEI Research seminar with Dr Emanuela Orlando (University of Sussex) took place on Wednesday 1 October 2014.

SEI Roundtable: Has Multiculturalism Failed?

The SEI Roundtable with Dr Sue Collard (Politics, University of Sussex), Dr Stephanie Berry (Law, University of Sussex), Prof Paul Statham (Director, Sussex Centre for Migration Studies) Wednesday 24 September 2014

SEI Roundtable: The 2014 European Parliament elections

The SEI Roundtable with Dr Sue Collard, Dr Kai Oppermann, Dr Ben Stanley, Prof Paul Taggart and Prof Paul Webb took place on  Wednesday 2 April 2014

 

SEI Research Seminar: The Politics of English Nationhood

The SEI Research seminar with Prof. Michael Kenny (Queen Mary University of London) took place on Wednesday 26 March 2014