32918 research outputs found
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Circular trials and wasted errors : EU waste law in the circular economy transition from an experimentalist governance lens
No full textDefence date: 29 January 2026Examining Board: Prof. Urška Šadl (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Joanne Scott (European University Institute); Prof. Ellen Vos (Maastricht University); Prof. Vibe Garf Ulfbeck (University of Copenhagen).In recent years, there has been a flurry of EU policy promulgating the transition of EU to a Circular Economy (CE). An important prong of this transition is that waste is no longer a source of toxicity but also an exploitable source of raw materials. Every transition phase carries a degree of uncertainty and this is no different for the CE transition. The thesis situates uncertainties in two spheres, namely knowledge production about waste materials and the (dis)empowerment of a common market for waste recovery services. Firstly, scant knowledge about the intrinsic properties of waste materials obscures the assessment of hazardous chemicals emerging only during the waste phase and thus not anticipated in the product design phase. These chemicals may pass unnoticed into the composition of secondary materials, which thus suffer a competitive disadvantage next to virgin materials. Secondly, a critical precursor for a European CE is that waste be traded within the bloc for its recycling. The (un)certainty of this trade is contingent on common waste classification standards for shipped waste as well as on the goal to integrate the economic benefits of waste trade with the control of its transboundary pollution risks. To explore the potential of EU waste law towards greater epistemic and trade fitness in EU’s waste sector, this thesis constitutes the first study applying an Experimentalist Governance (EG) to the EU’s legal framework for waste. EG holds that both spheres of uncertainty should be acknowledged in terms of common regulatory goals and addressed under conditions of broad actor participation, transparency and coordination. The thesis finds that, in doctrinal terms, the epistemic and trade fitness of EU waste law is low, despite the recent commitment of EU waste law to a CE.Chapter 1 '(Re)thinking EU waste law in the circular economy transition' and chapter 2 'Experimentalist governance of material circulation in the EU's internal market' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Circular or vicious loops? : gauging the persistence of EU waste law against the circular economy transition' (2025) in the journal 'Journal of environmental law'
Shaping social norms : intergroup social contact, women leadership, and historical legacy
No full textDefence date: 8 January 2026Examining Board: Prof. Arnout van de Rijt (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Elias Dinas (European University Institute, Co-Supervisor); Prof. Vasiliki Fouka (Stanford University); Prof. Giulia Andrighetto (Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies)This thesis explores the impact of intergroup social contact and gender role models on prejudicial attitudes, stereotypical beliefs, and discriminatory behaviors, with a focus on social norms. Chapters 1 to 3 are structured around a novel theoretical framework that examines the interplay between intergroup contact and social norms. Chapter 1 establishes the theoretical foundation, reviewing empirical studies on intergroup contact and deriving hypotheses about the conditions under which contact reduces discrimination. Chapter 2 presents a laboratory experiment investigating the impact of social contact on discrimination towards transgender individuals, exploring the role of social norms in mediating this effect. Chapter 3 extends this investigation to a field experiment in Italian high schools, examining the impact of social contact on attitudes towards LGBTQ+ individuals. The findings from these two experiments combined suggest that the social norms mechanism is not supported. Chapter 4, co-authored with Tarek Jaziri-Arjona and Vicente Valentim, examines the societal impact of electing far-right female leaders on gender norms, analysing the case of the first female Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni. The results indicate an increase in progressive behaviors, measured by donations to women’s organizations and calls to helplines for victims of violence, after her election, among individuals in regions with already progressive norms. Finally, Chapter 5 examines the influence of historical gender disparities in science on contemporary women’s engagement in STEM fields. Through a lab-in-the-field experiment, the study explores how reminders of past inequalities affect women’s interest and confidence in science. The null results suggest that historical narratives alone may not significantly influence women’s engagement in STEM
'The bra capital of Poland' : socialism, capitalism, and economic change in Polish lingerie industry, 1940s-2020s
No full textDefence date: 13 February 2026Examining Board: Prof. Glenda Sluga (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Monika Baar (European University Institute); Prof. Philipp Ther (University of Vienna); Prof. Joanna Wawrzyniak (University of Warsaw)This dissertation examines the evolution of the Polish lingerie industry in Głowno from the late 1940s to the early 2020s, focusing on the intersections of socialism, capitalism, gendered labour regimes, and economic change. It explores how transformations from state socialism to postsocialism in Poland reshaped labour organization, political subjectivities, consumption patterns, and sexual politics within this feminized industry. Drawing on archival research, including previously unexplored cooperative archives, and 21 semi-structured oral history interviews with Cooperative workers, managers, and private business owners, the study offers an analysis of local experiences amid global neoliberalization. Contrary to narratives of abrupt rupture in 1989, the thesis argues for a more complex understanding of continuity and change in economies of Eastern European states. It shows that flexible, fragmented, and gendered labour regimes characteristic of neoliberal capitalism had roots in socialist-era industry. The socialist cooperative sector in Głowno combined centralized state control with decentralized, gendered production systems, creating layered inequalities within the working class. The post-1989 transition brought increased privatization, entrepreneurialism, and transnational capital integration, which reconfigured rather than erased socialist labour patterns. The rise of subcontracting, especially with global brands like Triumph International, imposed new controls while perpetuating local precarity and uneven power relations. Gender plays a critical role in these processes: women entrepreneurs of the 1990s navigated a male-dominated business environment by emphasizing family frameworks and aligning with neoliberal discourses of empowerment, often obscuring persistent inequalities. Additionally, the material culture of bras reflects shifts in class, sexuality, and consumption, as the industry’s modernization under socialism gave way to consumption frustrations in the 1980s and commodification in postsocialism. This study contributes to the literature on Eastern European economic transformations by highlighting the entanglement of socialism and neoliberalism in shaping gendered labour and industry decline, situating Głowno’s lingerie sector within global neoliberalization while centering local experiences.Chapter 6 'Materiality, advertising, and the consumption of bras from Głowno : class and sexual politics in late socialist and postsocialist Poland' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article '“They look better on the breasts” : advertisement, sexuality, and the bra business in postsocialist Poland' (2023) in the journal 'Connexe : les espaces postcommunistes en question(s)'
Navigating empires : cross-border merchants and the union of the Iberian crowns in the Atlantic (c. 1580-1640)
No full textDefence date: 10 February 2026Examining Board: Prof. Giorgio Riello (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Bartolomé Yun Casalilla (European University Institute, external supervisor); Prof. Giancarlo Casale (European University Institute); Prof. José Manuel Santos Pérez (University of Salamanca)During the Union of the Crowns of Portugal and Castile (1580–1640), commerce across the Iberian Atlantic intensified within a political structure that formally preserved the autonomy of both kingdoms while generating new forms of interaction between their institutions and economic actors. This study examines how merchants and their associates operated within this composite imperial framework and analyses the ways in which their commercial ties adapted to shifting jurisdictions, wartime disruptions, and competing regulatory regimes. By following individuals engaged in trade between Brazil, West Central Africa, Spanish America, northern Europe, and Iberian ports, this research reconstructs how personal partnerships, credit arrangements, and cross-regional intermediaries sustained commercial activity across vast distances. My analysis focuses on the evolution of the institutional and legal environments in which traders operated. It assesses the practices of bodies such as the Casa de Contratación, the Consulado de Comerciantes, the Consejo de Indias, and their Portuguese counterparts, and shows how their policies intersected with the interests of merchants seeking to navigate prohibitions, embargoes, and jurisdictional overlaps. Particular attention is paid to how individuals used dispersed collaborators to manage risk, defend their claims before multiple authorities, and move goods and information between circuits officially kept separate. By foregrounding commercial contracts, litigation, and administrative investigations rather than inquisitorial trials, the study offers a revised picture of early modern Iberian governance. It argues that the Iberian Atlantic functioned through negotiated governance: institutional pluralism and overlapping jurisdictions enabled—and required—continuous bargaining between merchants and authorities, producing a workable order without either full central coordination or simple fragmentation
Collective data protection
No full textDefence date: 30 January 2026Examining Board: Prof. Thomas Streinz (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Giovanni Sartor (European University Institute); Prof. Ignacio Cofone (University of Oxford); Prof. Orla Lynskey (University College London)This thesis critically examines EU data protection law and calls for a change of paradigm from individualistic to collective data protection governance. The research question it addresses is whether collective data protection governance is desirable and how it can be achieved. Despite the popularity and wide adoption of EU data protection law, the individualistic governance that underlies most of its provisions faces fundamental problems. Not only is it ineffective because of the difficulties of individuals to make meaningful decisions, but also because, even if individuals were to overcome these problems, they would still end up compromising each other’s privacy due to its relational nature. Finally, the individualistic paradigm of current data protection law gives unilateral control to some individuals over matters that affect both other individuals and more broadly groups and society as a whole, and it fails to capture these interests. These problems can only be overcome if we regulate in a manner that takes all these interests into account. vi To resolve these problems, this thesis examines the structural concepts, substantive rules, and the enforcement of European data protection law. It proposes a number of interconnected reforms that broaden data protection law’s scope, allowing it to capture all relevant interests and reduce the gap between the law on the books and its application in reality; to introduce flexible rules that can adjust to the differences in subject matter and technological development; and to use alternative case handling mechanisms that will lessen data protection authorities’ caseload, enabling them to tackle systemic issues. This thesis builds on the emerging but disparate proposals of data protection scholarship that seeks to tackle these challenges and, using insights from law, economics, and regulatory theory, it synthesises them into a coherent proposal for reform.Chapter 5 'Enforcement' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'The enforcement of the Google Spain ruling' (2016) in the journal 'International journal of law and information technology'
The Greek left and Soviet literature, 1924-1968
No full textDefence date: 26 February 2026Examining Board: Prof. Giancarlo Casale (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Alexandra Ioannidou (University of Macedonia, external supervisor); Prof. Kristin Fabbe (European University Institute); Prof. Dimitrios Kargiotis (University of Ioannina).Although many researchers and historical actors have underlined the importance of the reception of Soviet literature for the formation and development of the Greek political Left in the twentieth century, no study has heretofore attempted the mapping of this historical process. This dissertation has thus taken upon itself to document and discuss the reception of Soviet literature in the Greek political Left between the year of “Marxist-Leninist” assimilation in 1924 and the subsequent sociopolitical pre-eminence of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) within the broader Greek Left, to the eventual split of the KKE into ‘οrthodox’ and Eurocommunist factions in 1968. Arguing for both the literature-centric nature of the internal and external projection of Soviet power and the Greek Left as a whole, as well as the ways Soviet and Greek leftist actors worked in tandem for the promotion of Soviet culture in Greece as a whole, this dissertation evidences the exact ways in which Soviet literary reception interacted and even determined facets of Greek social, political, and cultural history during this forty-two-year period; from the repressive cultural mechanisms of the Greek state in its most ‘nationalist’ manifestations, the cultural imaginaries of the Greek Left, and the rise and fall of the dogma of ‘socialist realism’ in the country, to the reception of Russian-language literature in Greece as a whole and the creation, sustainment, and development of international networks of leftist cultural exchange
Another Chinese city? : identity formation amid Hong Kong’s autocratisation
No full textDefence date: 21 January 2026Examining Board: Prof. Jeff T. Checkel (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Gordon Mathews (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, External Supervisor); Prof. Stefano Guzzini (European University Institute); Prof. Lea David (University College Dublin)This thesis investigates how grassroots identity is formed and reshaped in contemporary Hong Kong amid the city’s rapid autocratisation. While Hong Kong identity has long been understood as an ambiguous and evolving cultural construct shaped by Chinese heritage, British colonial legacies, and a cosmopolitan outlook, it has often been studied through quantitative surveys, elite discourses, or media analysis. These approaches tend to marginalise the agency of ordinary citizens and fail to capture how identity is lived and negotiated in everyday contexts. This limitation has become particularly acute following the 2020 introduction of the National Security Law, which triggered a profound socio-political transformation and which severely constrained avenues for political expression. This thesis addresses the following research questions: 1) How should Hong Kong identity be conceptualised and explained today?; 2) How do the processes underpinning grassroots, bottom-up identity formation operate at a time of rapid socio-political transformations in Hong Kong?; 3) And more broadly, what can Hong Kong teach us about identity formation amid autocratisation? In order to address the shortcomings of the existing scholarship on Hong Kong identity and to answer the research questions, this thesis develops and makes use of a novel analytical framework, the Say-Do-See framework, which draws on political ethnography and operationalises identity through the triangulation of narratives (what people say), practices (what people do), and spatial-symbolic perceptions (what people see). By foregrounding the lived experiences, everyday practices, and perceptions of ordinary Hongkongers, the framework challenges dominant top-down or elite-centric narratives of identity. The framework is employed across three empirical chapters, each grounded in ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and photo-elicitation techniques in combination with an engagement with three theoretical frameworks on identity formation. The first empirical chapter engages social identity theory to examine the civic aspects of identity among Hong Kong populations. It shows how Hongkongers are redefining their civic relationships vis-à-vis the state through strategies of adaptation, individualisation, and low-risk expressions. These redefinitions range from reluctant compliance to subtle shifts in everyday behaviour and discourse, highlighting how autocratisation is reshaping civic self-understandings without necessarily extinguishing them. The second empirical chapter draws on symbolic interactionism to analyse the cultural aspects of Hong Kong identity. It argues that in response to political pressure, many Hongkongers are actively striving to highlight and redefine distinctive aspects of Hong Kong identity, as well as seeking new ways to express cultural uniqueness. This process is both defensive and creative, suggesting that autocratisation has, paradoxically, reinforced cultural identity at the individual level. The third empirical chapter uses postcolonial theory to explore the temporal dimensions of identity. It reveals how memory, especially of the colonial era and the 2014 and 2019 protest movements, is being actively curated and enacted through everyday practices, symbolic references, and spatial engagements. The past has become a site of resistance and self-definition, with collective memory emerging as a critical component of postcolonial identity preservation in Hong Kong. X The thesis culminates with a chapter that discusses the conceptual, analytical, and theoretical contributions of the study. Conceptually, it proposes an updated definition of Hong Kong identity in the era of autocratisation rooted in a distinct city identity but with Chinese characteristics. Analytically, it outlines how the implementation of SayDo-See framework results in rigorous, systematic, and transferable methodological framework to study grassroots identity amid autocratisation and beyond. Theoretically, it establishes a set of theoretical propositions to the existing theoretical frameworks, resulting from the combination of the application of theoretical pluralism and the Say-Do-See framework. Finally, the chapter culminates with prototype of a theory of identity formation amid autocratisation, proposing that studying autocratisation requires serious engagement with the politics of identity not merely as an outcome of repression, but as a terrain of adaptation, resistance, and reinvention. The theory argues that identity formation amid autocratisation is a multi-scalar process involving top-down state strategies, bottom-up everyday practices, and horizontal networks of solidarity and meaning-making. In conclusion, I answer the research questions and debate whether Hong Kong is just another Chinese city now as well as what the future holds for Hong Kong’s ever contested identity
Discursive struggles over the environment : dynamics between social movement organisations, traditional media, and public opinion in Switzerland, 1974-2024
No full textDefence date: 20 January 2026Examining Board: Prof. Dr. Ellen M. Immergut (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Dr. Simon Hix (European University Institute); Prof. Dr. Swen Hutter (WZB Social Science Center Berlin); Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Ivarsflaten (University of Bergen)How do social movement organisations achieve the societal changes they seek? In this dissertation, I propose that studying social movements through a discursive lens can enrich our understanding of processes of influence. Using the case of Switzerland from 1974 to 2024, I illustrate how social movement organisations shaped the discursive field around environmental issues, swaying public opinion and political behaviour in their favour. In Chapter 3, I outline how this discursive field has evolved over the past 50 years, revealing that dynamics between the federal and parliamentary discourses, along with media coverage of collective action events, fostered discursive shifts. These changes positively affected the policy preferences and electoral behaviour of individuals. In Chapter 4, I substantiate these findings and test two different processes to explain how the recent mobilisation for climate justice shaped the 2019 parliamentary election. While citizens appeared unaffected by whether their constituency experienced protest events, I find that media attention to the organisation Climate Strike Switzerland and to climate change in general increased the vote shares of the Green Party and the Green Liberal Party. This finding demonstrates that social movements can benefit political parties beyond those that share similar ideological views. Furthermore, it is unexpected given that journalists are commonly found to denounce protest events. In Chapter 5, I address this puzzle by analysing journalistic meaning-making of disruptive protest events against the Gotthard Road Tunnel. Contrary to the literature, the Swiss newspapers tended to sympathise with the concerns of the disruptors. However, journalists also reinforced negative stereotypes stemming from the social position of the disruptors and reported more intensely when the protest events targeted the causes of climate change. I propose that gendered understandings of the human-nature relationship result in the commodification of non-human nature and the cultural valorisation of mobility practices, eventually leading the media to perceive environmental degradation as an inevitable byproduct of modernisation
Crisis jurisprudence : the legal interpretation of European citizenship during the financial crisis and Brexit
No full textDefence date: 30 January 2026Examining Board: Prof. Urška Šadl (European University Institute, supervisor); Prof. Bruno de Witte (European University Institute); Prof. Daniel Naurin (University of Oslo); Prof. Niamh Nic Shuibhne (University of Edinburgh).As the European Union’s (EU) long crisis decade unfolded, EU institutions adapted and, when necessary, drastically changed their practices to address crisis demands. The Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) is no exception. Its reasoning in cases concerning crisis measures displayed notable creativity. Yet the Court’s broader response to crises, beyond its adjudication of crisis-related cases, remains understudied. While existing scholarship has alluded to a link between political developments and the Court’s jurisprudential shift in citizenship, it remains unclear under what conditions, and through which mechanisms, it responds to crises. The thesis investigates whether the Court’s interpretation of European citizenship rights, specifically its choice of legal basis, its citations to earlier decisions, and the timing of its judgments, during the financial crisis and Brexit differs from ‘normal times’ and is contextually calibrated. It presents the first empirical study of all citizenship judgments, using mixed-methods to unveil general patterns and detailed mechanisms in the Court’s interpretation of European citizenship rights across two crises that challenged the EU’s political order. The findings reveal a fundamental and strategic shift in the legal basis, the citations, and timing of citizenship judgments which temporally mirrors and substantively responds to crisis developments. The Court’s legal response to crises emerges as contextsensitive and dynamic, alternating between interventionist and deferential approaches based on the stage of the crisis, the broader context, and the interests at stake. The key scholarly contribution lies in conceptualising this shift as a crisis jurisprudence: a distinct form of adjudication where the Court “muddles through” a crisis by strategically adapting its use of pre-existing legal tools to intensified pressures, thereby issuing politically acceptable and legally defensible rulings. Crisis jurisprudence as an analytical lens provides a novel framework for understanding the Court’s nuanced responsiveness to contextual pressures across crises and legal domain.Chapter 3 'Legal basis' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Judicial Europeanisation through deconstitutionalisation : the case of the analogus application of the citizenship directive' (2024) in the journal 'European papers - a journal on law and integration' and chapter 4 'Citations' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Back to the future? The evolution of European social citizenship through the lens of citations' (2024) in the journal 'European journal of empirical legal studies
Governing capabilities : the political economy of skills in the knowledge economy
No full textDefence date: 02 March 2026Examining Board: Prof. Anton Hemerijck (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Ellen Immergut (European University Institute); Prof. Giuliano Bonoli (University of Lausanne); Prof. Anke Hassel (Hertie School)The shift towards knowledge-based economies has placed skills at the centre of economic development and social cohesion. This transformation has produced a range of challenges, in particular growing skill-biased inequalities and persistent shortages of skilled labour. Skills policies therefore face a dual imperative: to support economic upgrading while maintaining inclusiveness. Governments across Europe have pledged to strengthen their commitment to skill formation, yet these systems are embedded in historically stable institutions and constrained by powerful employer interests. Greater state involvement also risks destabilising the foundations that have long sustained the development of a skilled workforce. This raises a central question: can governments meaningfully adapt skill formation systems to socio-economic change? Using computational text analysis, the first paper shows that governments have expanded their involvement in vocational education and training (VET) across the EU. A case study on Germany, a least-likely case, shows how digitalisation and climate imperatives created a window of opportunity for redefining the state’s role in VET. The second paper examines how state intervention shapes access to training. In France, reforms overhauled previous governance arrangements and expanded the overall training provision. However, they reduced access to up- and reskilling for low-skilled individuals. In Germany, state interventions complemented the existing system based on social partner networks and improved access among low-skilled adults and youth. The third paper investigates whether a shared trajectory of stronger state intervention and European coordination can coexist with sustained national diversity. It finds that polysemic concepts such as ‘skills’ enable alignment without convergence, as Member States adapt EU frameworks to own priorities. The fourth paper extends the analysis to parental leave, a less institutionalised area of skills policy concerned with sustaining a skilled workforce despite parenthood. It shows that interparty coordination shapes these reforms, illustrating how coalition dynamics affect the evolution of skills policies.Chapter 2 'State intervention in vocational education : training for the digital and green transitions' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'State intervention in vocational education : training for the digital and green transitions' (2025) in the journal 'Regulation & governance'.
Chapter 4 'The polysemy of skills : exploring country-specific approaches in the knowledge economy' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'The polysemy of skills : exploring country-specific approaches in the knowledge economy' (2025) in the journal 'Regulation & governance'.
Chapter 5 'Conviction or consent? tracing the influence of coalition partners on family policy under centre-right ministers' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Conviction or consent? : tracing the influence of coalition partners on family policy under centre-right ministers' (2025) in the journal 'Government and opposition'