2021
Dissenting Voices: European thought between tradition and rupture
Time and place: July 9, 2021 12:00 PM – 3:15 PM, Zoom
Seventh webinar. What is Dissenting Voices about and what is happening?
Dissenting Voices aims at revisiting in a critical fashion European legal studies, with a view to engage critically with the very idea of what is the point and purpose of studying European law. Our contributors are concerned with the integration project in a great variety of ways. The papers that will be presented in this webinar series transcend conventional boundaries with innovative ideas and theoretical and political suggestions. At first sight, it may be thought that the project could end amounting to a mere patchwork of topics and suggestions. However, it is the very objective of our initiative that non-mainstream views come to the fore and neglected topics get explored. We believe, however, that our reading has discerned interesting patterns in what we have brought together so far and that by means of observing closely, commenting and elaborating further the ideas and projects submitted, the province of European law will be durably transformed.
The series of webinars “Dissenting voices” is organised jointly by Birbeck College, Cardiff University, Departamento de Filosofía y Sociedad, Universidad Complutense and ARENA, University of Oslo.
2018
Seminar on terrorism, identity, and belonging in a transnational world
Time and place: Dec. 10, 2018 12:30 PM – 4:00 PM, Athene 2, Oslo Metropolitan University
The seminar will discuss three recently published books which deal with challenging questions of identity and belonging, as well as terrorism.
The first book is written by Riva Kastoryano (Sciences Po, Paris) and is entitled Burying the Jihadis - Bodies between State-Territory and Identity. As Kastoryano notes, the literature on terrorists has focused on issues of security. In her innovative book she focuses on the questions of identity that this important challenge brings up.
The second book is entitled Diversity and Contestations over Nationalism in Europe and Canada (co-edited by John Erik Fossum, Riva Kastoryano and Birte Siim). The book compares and contrasts the EU and Canada as multicultural and multinational political systems marked by profound identitarian struggles. In the book the tensions between state as territorial order and identity are addressed from three different vantage-points: transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and ethnic nationalist (as right-wing populists see this).
The third book, written by Cathrine Thorleifsson (Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo) is entitled Nationalist responses to the crises in Europe: old and new hatreds and explores the various material conditions, historical events and social contexts that shape distinct forms of xenophobia and intolerance toward migrants and minorities. It identifies the drivers and character of populist nationalism and the way in which these differ across national contexts.
Organizers:
- ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo
- C-REX - Center for Research on Extremism, University of Oslo
- NOVA - Norwegian Social Research, Oslo Metropolitan University
Programme
- 12.30: Riva Kastoryano: Burying the Jihadis
- 13.00: John Erik Fossum, Marianne Takle, Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Sindre Bangstad: Diversity and Contestations over Nationalism in Europe and Canada
- 13.30: Cathrine Thorleifsson: Nationalist responses to the crises in Europe: old and new hatreds
- 14.00: Coffee
- 14.30: Discussion, chaired by Are Vegard Haug
Seminar: Can Political Institutions Commit Civil Disobedience?
Time and place: Oct. 22, 2018 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Eckhoff's corner, Domus Bibliotheca (Vestbygningen)
Professor William E. Scheuerman will give a presentation 'Can Political Institutions Commit Civil Disobedience?' at the seminar at the Faculty of Law. The seminar is jointly organised by the Department of Public and International Law and ARENA.
William E. Scheuerman is a Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Indiana University (Bloomington).
Comments by Agustín José Menéndez, ARENA and Inger Johanne Sand, Department of Public and International Law, University of Oslo.
Organizer: ARENA Centre for European Studies and Department of Public and International Law, The Faculty of Law, University of Oslo
2016
Seminar: Opportunities and constraints of the European Citizens' Initiative
Time and place: June 7, 2016 1:15 PM – 3:00 PM, Johan P. Olsen Room, ARENA
On Tuesday 7 June ARENA's guest researcher Maximilian Conrad will assess the role and potential of the European Citizen's Initiative in the context of his newly published book Bridging the Gap?
A unique tool as it was meant to be, the European Citizens' Inititave (ECI) started out with high hopes for becoming an instrument of participatory democracy that would allow citizens to "set the agenda". Has the ECI given citizens a voice in Brussels? Is it a recognized instrument by the EU citizens and has it been widely used? What are the main challenges and constraints?
Associate Professor Maximilian Conrad from the University of Iceland will give a presentation of his newly published volume on the European Citizen's Initiative. Conrad is one of the editors of the book and guest researcher at ARENA in June 2016.
2015
Research seminar: The meaning of partisanship
Time and place: Oct. 27, 2015 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM, room HF-12 Selskapslokalet, Niels Treschows hus
ARENA and the Democracy Programme organise a research seminar on political parties and the place of partisanship in current democracies. 27 October is devoted to discussions on a forthcoming book which aims to rejuvenate the theoretical study of partisanship.
The University of Oslo's Democracy Programme and ARENA organise a research seminar to discuss the book manuscript The Meaning of Partisanship with the authors, Jonathan White and Lea Ypi (LSE).
Organizer: ARENA Centre for European Studies and Research Programme on Democracy as Idea and Practice
Will Britain end up like Norway?
Time and place: Oct. 26, 2015 7:30 PM, Kjelleren, Litteraturhuset, Oslo
What are the British alternatives to full EU membership? What can Britain learn from current non-members? Welcome to a panel discussion on Britain's future in Europe.
Britain is often identified as an 'awkward' and 'reluctant' EU member state. Now, the relationship is at a crossroads: Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to renegotiate the terms for Britain's EU membership, and hold a national referendum.
What are the British alternatives to full membership? What are the reactions from Brussels and from key member states such as Germany? What can Britain learn from current non-members? And what are the implications of a Brexit - for the European integration project and for other outsiders such as Norway?
The discussion will revolve around analyses from the recent book The EU's non-members: independence under hegemony? as well as the August issue of British Politics Review Still with Europe, but not of it? Taking stock of Britain's European debate.
The panel:
- Isabelle Hertner, lecturer, University of Birmingham
- Chris Lord, professor, ARENA
- Kristin M. Haugevik, senior research fellow, NUPI
- Chair: John Erik Fossum, professor, ARENA
Organizer: ARENA and British Politics Society
2014
Anne Brasseur: Challenges to human rights and democracy in Europe
Time and place: Sep. 10, 2014 4:30 PM, Aud. 1, Eilert Sundts hus
Anne Brasseur, President of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, will visit Blindern campus on 10 September. She will discuss the challenges to human rights and democracy in Europe with students and others.
The President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Anne Brasseur, invites to a discussion with students at Blindern campus on 10 September 2014.
Brasseur will hold a short lecture on the challenges to human rights and democracy in Europe, to be followed by a questions and answers session.
Topics to be discussed are the current international context and the challenges to the presidency of the Council of Europe, including themes such as the situation in Ukraine, human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, frozen conflicts as well as migration, populism and intolerance.
The audience will have the opportunity to extensively discuss some important challenges of our time with the head of an assembly which brings together 318 parliamentarians from 47 European countries, representing 820 million people.
Welcome by Inga Bostad, Director Norwegian Centre for Human Rights.
Moderator: John Erik Fossum, ARENA Centre for European Studies.
Organizer: ARENA Centre for European Studies in cooperation with Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR)
2013
Escaping the crisis
Time and place: Dec. 5, 2013 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM, House of Literature, Oslo
The financial crisis in the EU has pushed thousands of citizens to migrate in a bid to escape uncertainty, unemployment and poverty. Many pick Norway as their destination. What are their experiences? On 5 December ARENA invites to a public debate at the House of Literature to discuss findings from a research project on EU migrants in Norway.
More and more Southern Europeans migrate to other European countries in order to escape the financial crisis. How do they experience moving to and living in Norway? What does it mean to be an EU citizen in times of crisis? How aware are labour migrants of their rights as EU citizens? Which policies and support networks are in place here in Norway to help them in this transition? And how are they received by the Norwegian state, media and civil society?
New research on EU migrants to Norway from ARENA’s project The European crisis and the citizens will be presented. The topic will be debated by a panel of journalists, researchers and representatives from civil society – all with close relations to and experience with the European crisis and its consequences.
Organizer: ARENA Centre for European Studies
Programme
- 10.00: Escaping the Eurocrisis: EU migrants in Norway
- Asimina Michailidou and Espen D. H. Olsen, ARENA
- 10.15: Panel debate
- Hege Moe Eriksen, journalist NRK and former Europe correspondent
- Morten Stensberg, leader Caritas infocentre for immigrants in Oslo
- Line Eldring, senior researcher Fafo
- Moderator: Cathrine Holst, ARENA
- 11.30: Light lunch
Rethinking Europe
Time and place: Nov. 12, 2013 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM, House of Literature, Oslo
As part of the seminar series Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, jointly organised by the Freedom of Expression Foundation and ARENA, Prof. Timothy Garton Ash from Oxford University held the public lecture 'Rethinking Europe'.
The future of European integration formed the overarching theme in Garton Ash’s lecture. In the first part of the talk, Ash explained European integration using the analogy of the 'Nike-swoosh' to describe the European trajectory from 1913 to 2013. The trajectory went down in the first part of the 20th century but from the late 1940s it went steadily up, culminating in both EU enlargement and in the attempt to make a constitutional treaty. At the top of the trajectory we find ourselves confronted with a question mark concerning the future of European integration.
The great drivers of integration
Ash then proposed to look at the great drivers of European integration since the late 1940s and asked where they are now, and whether they have been weakened or have even disappeared?
He argued that the single greatest drive was the personal memory of historic evils and Europe was seen as a way forward. He pointed out, however, that the problem today is that most take the historic achievement of integration for granted or do not see Europe as desirable any longer. This means that the most important driver for integration is diminished or even gone altogether.
In its place we have what Ash calls 'EasyJet Europe' meaning that the ability to travel freely is a given to many Europeans. Today’s generation is not necessarily anti-European but neither is it passionately pro-European.
The second-most important driver was the Cold War. The Soviet Union acted as an external negative integrator and the US as a positive external integrator. However, Europe is now no longer central to the US’ concerns.
The third driver was, until the early 1990s, Germany. The desire to transform from the worst to the best Europeans meant exceptional commitment to Europe. In Post-unification, Ash argues, Germany has turned into a more 'normal' member state, like France or the UK, which pursues its national interests more strongly than in the past.
Scenarios out of the crisis
Thereafter, Ash sketched out five possible scenarios (and their caveats) out of this existential crisis.
Firstly, there could be direct elections of the Commission president. Ash argued, however, that this would do little to seriously change discontented voter minds.
Secondly, there could be a genuine constitutional debate and treaty. Ash argued that it will become essential to explain the system with some sort of constitutional document in the future but not today.
Thirdly, there have been calls for more 'Europe from below'. European citizen movements could inject some spirit, however as he pointed out, one cannot organize Europe from below from above.
Fourthly, the Habermasian notion of a public sphere is an interesting possibility. Ash argued that we have elements of this online but for the wider public media is still nationalist, and that the media has not developed alongside European integration.
Fifth, he stated the need for a new narrative.
Ash concluded that he is left with optimism of the will but pessimism of intellect. In his view, the EU continues to exist as a complex structure but the reality will increasingly be shaped elsewhere.
Public intellectuals as controversial analysts
Senior researcher at ARENA, Cathrine Holst had three comments to Garton Ash’s talk. The first concerned the intellectual and rhetorical climate in which we are to re-think Europe, and especially the role of realism in the current Zeitgeist. The second comment evolved around the extent to which the problem of Europe is one of political leadership. Holst raised the question whether the technical nature of the crisis presented a problem for leaders in finding a way out of the crisis. And finally, she took up the role of public intellectuals and their potentially controversial role in analysing the crisis.
Coercive rule-making in economic policy
ARENA professor Christopher Lord’s comments included four main points concerning the fiscal compact and its consequences for EU member states. He firstly addressed the issue of coercive rule-making in the context of fiscal discipline. Secondly, Lord pointed out the increasing conditionality of economic self-rule. Thirdly, he highlighted the role of the monetary union in constitutionalizing economic policy. And finally, he pointed out that Eurozone countries have collectivized risk and European bodies having to supervise banks and financial markets. Lord concluded that Europe cannot just be rethought by collectivising and constitutionalising elements of economic policy in sometimes rather coercive ways. Europe also needs to rethink concepts of good neighbourliness, fair co-operation and historic responsibility for shared policies, and past mistakes, in order to find a way forward.
Organizer: Freedom of Expression Foundation (Fritt Ord) in collaboration with ARENA.
Intellectuals and the crisis of democracy
Time and place: Oct. 24, 2013 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM, House of Literature, Oslo
As part of the seminar series Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, jointly organised by the Freedom of Expression Foundation and ARENA, Prof. Jeremy Adelman from Princeton University held the public lecture 'Intellectuals and the crisis of democracy in the 20th century: The odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman'.
Adelman presented the book Wordly Philosopher, his intellectual biography of the writer and economist Albert O. Hirschman. He talked a little bit about writing the book and the challenge of piecing together the political economist and intellectual historian with a century of struggles.
Adelman characterized Hirschman as a pioneer and important social science theorist. Hirschman is perhaps best known for the book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970), which was deeply formed by Hirschman’s own life and experiences as an intellectual in twentieth century Europe. Among other things the book is a strong call for intellectuals to use their voice in times of crisis.
Prof. John Erik Fossum (ARENA) and Prof. Bernt Hagtvet (Department of Political Science) acted as commentators. They both noted the relevance of Hirschman’s life and work to the analysis of crises of democracy, and also how important Hirschman was as a source of inspiration to Stein Rokkan.
Building on Stein Rokkan’s application of Hirschman’s framework, Fossum added ‘entry’ as a fourth category and then went on to note that the nation state can be considered as a distinct constellation of exit, entry, voice and loyalty. The framework is useful to the analysis of crisis but also to how crises may be handled and positive changes detected. For one, Fossum argued that this conceptual framework can be unpacked and further developed so as to understand cosmopolitan constellations and cosmopolitanisation processes in more general (see for instance Fossum’s chapter on cosmopolitanism in Rethinking European Democracy, edited by Eriksen/Fossum, 2012).
Organizer: Freedom of Expression Foundation (Fritt Ord) in collaboration with ARENA.
2012
Norway and the EU. A researchers' assessment
Time and place: Nov. 22, 2012 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM, auditoriet (R5), Akersgt. 59
With the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union as a backdrop, ARENA researchers, in collaboration with 'Partnerforum', will assess recent developments in Europe and question how the Norwegian public administration adapts to the EU.
On the 12th of October the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded the European Union (EU). In its announcement the Committee's is that the union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.
With the Prize and an European Union in economic and political crisis as a backdrop ARENA in collaboration with 'Partnerforum' welcome you to a breakfast meeting with researchers' views on the EU as a political actor in Europe and the world on the agenda.
The public administration is central in Norway–EU relations. It is essential that Norwegian officials in ministries and agencies have a good knowledge of how the EU develops and what it this means for our country. The fact that the Union is in a economic and political crisis, but at the same time receives the Peace Prize, gives us an opportunity to discuss the EU in a slightly different way: At the intersection between the current developments and some of the long lines of European cooperation.
'Partnerforum' is a partnership forum in collaboration between the University of Oslo, BI Norwegian Business School and relevant partners in the Norwegian public administration.
The 1814 Lectures: Jan-Werner Müller
Time and place: Oct. 22, 2012 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, Auditorium 1, Eilert Sundts hus
Jan-Werner Müller from Princeton University will give the lecture 'Fear and Freedom: The Legacies of Mid-Twentieth-Century Liberalism' as a part of the series 'The 1814 Lectures'.
Jan-Werner Müller has received much attention for his unusual analysis of the development of European liberal democracy in his latest book Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe, published with Yale University Press in 2011. Here Müller gives an account of the history of political thought in twentieth-century Europe and pays particular attention to the many failures of leading intellectuals in upholding democratic standards.
Müller’s analysis is highly relevant in light of the current euro crisis and the European Union’s fiscal treaty. He argues that the real victor after the Second World War was democracy constrained by constitution and other non-majoritarian institutions. Technocracy is not a new feature in European politics.
Müller is Professor of Politics at Princeton University where he directs the project ”History of Political Thought”.
He has published several books on German and European history of political thought and especially constitutionalism after the Second World War, amongst others Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity (Yale University Press, 2000), A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought (Yale University Press, 2003) and Constitutional Patriotism (Princeton University Press, 2007).
The 1814 Lectures
The 1814 Lectures series is organised by the Norwegian Research Council together with The Freedom of Expression Foundation (Fritt Ord) and the universities of Bergen, Oslo and Tromsø and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in connection with the Bicentennial Celebration of the Norwegian Constitution in 2014. The series will shed light on the historical complexity and ambiguity of a central term in all constitutions; the seemingly straightforward concept freedom.
The series opened with a lecture by Quentin Skinner in Bergen on the 30th of May 2012. In the summer of 2013 Lynn Avery Hunt from the University of California, Los Angeles will hold a lecture in Trondheim. In Autumn 2013 the lecture series moves to Tromsø, before it ends in Oslo Spring 2014.
See a video recording of the lecture here: Fear and Freedom: The Legacies of Mid-Twentieth-Century.
Innovating Governance in the Construction of the European Research Area
Time and place: June 8, 2012 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM, Johan P. Olsen Room, ARENA
The aim of this highly interactive one day event is to develop a research agenda on the European Research Area.
The starting point is that, although high on the EU political and policy agenda, the creation of the European Research Area is one of the most under-studied phenomena in European integration.
Specific questions which we will explore in scoping the research agenda include: what is the European Research Area and what is its governance structure?; how has it evolved and what is the relationship between this ‘area formation’ and others (e.g. the European Higher Education Area)?; what are the pressing issues (e.g. legitimacy, effectiveness, or democratic accountability) concerning these developments?; and, are the theories and approaches we have for investigating European integration adequate to capture and account for its evolution?
Organizer: Meng-Hsuan Chou (ARENA) and Lorna Ryan (City University London)