Tommaso Pavone

Academic interests

Tommaso Pavone's comparative research probes the often concealed - and occasionally contentious - politics through which judges and lawyers shape political development and advance social change, as well as the politics of rule of law (non-)enforcement in the European Union (EU). He is also interested in qualitative research methods, including process-tracing, comparative case studies, fieldwork and interviewing methods.

Background

Tommaso Pavone is an Assistant Professor of Law and Politics in the School of Government and Public Policy (SGPP) at the University of Arizona and Visiting Researcher at the ARENA Center for European Studies at the University of Oslo, affiliated with the project ENROL - Enforcing the Rule of Law: What can the European Union do to prevent rule-of-law deterioration from within?. He received his Ph.D. in 2019 from the Department of Politics at Princeton University, specializing in comparative politics, judicial politics, and law and society, with a regional focus on the European Union (EU). His new book - The Ghostwriters: Lawyers and the Politics Behind the Judicial Construction of Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2022) -  has been praised as a “profoundly important book,” “a tour de force,” “the most important book on European legal integration in decades,” and has won four major social science awards from the Law and Society Association (LSA), the American Political Science Association (APSA), and the European Union Studies Association (EUSA). His research has also been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, such as American Political Science Review, World Politics, Law & Society Review, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Law & Courts, European Law Journal, European Constitutional Law Review, and Constitutional Studies. His research has also been covered by high-profile press outlets such as The New York Times and Politico.