The ESPOL-LAB Research Centre for European and International Politics is composed of a team of researchers analysing public decision-making processes and contemporary transformations in the political sphere. Questioning the boundaries of politics and the relationship between politics and society is at the heart of ESPOL-LAB’s scientific project. What is the actual impact of political decision-making? What are its drivers? To what extent do policies still refer to the regulation of society?
The apparent fragility of the contemporary state, in conjunction with the fragmentation of identities, growing globalisation of economies, and the emergence of new forms of violence highlight the difficulty of organising social relations and giving meaning to societal life. Yet, while the modern state may no longer be seen as the exclusive framework within which common rules are developed and transformed, it nevertheless retains an unparalleled appeal and ability to guide and organise societies.
In this context, ESPOL-LAB research aims to help inform political decision-making processes, their normative underpinnings and the constraints they face, also including their continuously transforming relations to territory and violence. Our research team is composed of specialists in various political science fields, such as public policies, international relations, comparative politics, history of political ideas, and political theory.
1) The quality of democracy
Representative democracy has been put to the test for several decades, in Europe as in the rest of the world. Understanding the multifaceted causes of this crisis is one of the major challenges of social sciences and, more particularly, of contemporary political science. The role of political parties and governments is changing. In a globalized world, the position of nation states, including in the European Union is evolving. The forms and arenas of political participation are diversifying. The rise of so-called ‘populist’ movements challenges the political elites.
Based on a reflection of the fundamental principles of democracy, this thematic research area aims to analyse the formal and procedural conditions of democracy, the capacity of political institutions to meet these criteria as well as the causes and consequences of democratic transformation. The research conducted on these issues goes beyond a strictly legalistic reading of democratic rules to include a theoretical reflection on the criteria of good governance with an empirical analysis of political processes.
Using the tools of political philosophy, political sociology and public policy analysis, the work of this research area focuses specifically on:
– political representation, such as elections, parties and parliaments,
– new spaces of democracy, especially economic democracy,
– e-democracy.
2) Reconfigurations of the International
This ESPOL-LAB research area explores the contemporary transformations of the international stage. The latter is traditionally understood as an abstract space without an own territory where political and social phenomena would evolve either completely outside the state or between states. The International can however also be understood as a certain regime of limits, historically contingent, articulated around the spatial division between the internal and the external. From this, a whole series of normative and structuring distinctions of political practice and the very understanding of politics could be elaborated: a distinction between the citizen and the foreigner, between domestic and foreign policy, between crime and war, between the criminal and the enemy, between internal security and national defence, between the police and the armed forces etc.
The International has always been put to the test and also has continuously been transformed in the process of global integration, as suggested in the literature about the advent of a ‘global and borderless world’. Yet, the International has never totally dissolved in ‘world politics’ that would disregard or override the states. Rather than disappearing, the State is being transformed and, in this context, the International is also undergoing a transformation.
This third research area analyses the contemporary reconfigurations of the International.In a critical and reflexive perspective, these research works particularly question the reorientation of the historical construction of the modern state, the evolving notions of space, borders and the enemy, the contested (and yet continually reaffirmed) procedures of legitimising state sovereign authority and the transformation of the conditions for the exercise of violence.
The topics that drive the work of this research area are in particular:
– international security and regional and international security organisations,
– armed conflicts, war and military strategy,
– terrorism and anti-terrorism.
3) Politics of the Anthropocene
The Anthropocene denotes a new geological epoch in the Earth’s history in which humans have become the main drivers of planetary-wide changes. Climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, ocean acidification, plastic seas, overexploitation of natural resources, and other problems prompted by capitalist globalisation accumulation endanger the habitability of the planet. It characterises a fundamental change in the human-environment relation, as the human species dominates over biological and geological processes on Earth. This in turn points to the political and social implications of the Anthropocene concept.
In our work, we focus, first, on the politics of the Anthropocene from different perspectives. The changing relations of nature and society shed light on the acceleration of contradictions and dualist divisions as a way of organising these relations under capitalist conditions (e.g. North/South, nature/culture, men/women, us/them, human/non-human). The idea of the Anthropocene brings to the fore the political necessity for thinking our relations to the environment in the era of advanced capitalism, or Capitalocene. This second strand of work focuses on politics for the Anthropocene. In response to the challenges of the Anthropocene, human societies must question power relations and rethink their principles and practices in order to navigate away from critical tipping points in planetary natures.
The work of this research area focusses on the Politics of and for the Anthropocene, including:
– social and political responses to the environmental crisis,
– current food systems and alternative food systems,
– visions and pathways towards collective change, relating to sustainable development and radical reorganisation of nature-society relationships.
ESPOL-LAB is a partner in the RECONNECT (Reconciling Europe with its Citizens through Democracy and the Rule of Law) project. This 4-year multi-disciplinary project funded by the European Union under the framework programme H2020.
JUSTCONSERVATION is a 3-year research project led by ESPOL and funded by the Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (CESAB) of the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB).
ESPOL-LAB is a partner in the Just-Scapes project, a 3-year project coordinated by the University of East Anglia and funded by the Pan-European intergovernmental Joint Programming Initiative Climate(JPI Climate) as part of its SOLSTICE progamme.
ESPOL is involved in the NETCONF project (Networks & Scientific Congresses) launched in 2019 and co-sponsored with CRIEF (University of Poitiers) and CNRS. Thanks to funding from the Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique (GIS) Réseau URFIST and the CNRS, NETCONF brings together 7 institutions with the objective of characterising the effect that congresses can have on the dynamics of scientific networks and their internationalisation.
ESPOL-LAB participates in the ‘Collaborative Observatory on Terrorism, Anti-Terrorism and Violence’ (O.C.T.A.V.). This is an initiative of scientists from various disciplinary backgrounds, supported and funded by LabToP-CRESPPA-Paris8-CNRS, ESPOL-ICL, REPI-ULB and CERI-SciencesPo/CNRS.
ESPOL-Lab launched an electoral sociology project, together with the Collectif de Recherche sur les Élections Municipales et Intercommunales (CREMI) and CERAPS (University of Lille), focussed on the 2020 local elections in the Hauts-de-France region.
ESPOL-LAB is involved since late 2020 in the “Semences paysannes” (“Farmer’s seeds”) project alongside Bio en Grand Est and ARDEAR Grand-Est. Funded by Agence de l’eau Seine Normandie for a durationof 3 years, the project aims to contribute to the preservation of water resources by changing agricultural practices through the development of farmer seeds as mean to save water.
Project “Farmer-led strategies to resist factory farming in the Global South”
Dr Brendan Coolsaet (ESPOL) and Dr Kristin Reynolds (The New School / Yale University) were awarded a grant by Tiny Beam Fund, a private US-based foundation, in 2019 for the “Farmer-led strategies to resist factory farming in the Global South” project.
The research project was about understanding the dynamics of small-scale and industrial livestock production in emerging economies such as Brazil, India, and China, as well as regions of the world that have traditionally received less attention in ‘pro-poor’ agricultural development, such as parts of West Africa or East Africa.
Project “Reviving democratic participation in Europe: lessons from the crisis”
Professor Michael Holmes (Liverpool Hope University) completed a research stay at ESPOL-LAB, funded by the Regional Council Nord-Pas de Calais under their ‘Invited researchers’ programme. During his stay in Lille throughout the year 2017, Michael Holmes pursued a project on the impact of the Euro crisis on political parties as agents of democratic participation. Results of this work is an edited volume (to be published by Manchester University Press) to which Julien Navarro and Antonella Seddone contributed, and to the organisation of an international conference on Brexit in November 2017. Michael Holmes continues to collaborate with ESPOL-LAB as associate researcher.
Project “Between personalization and democratization”
From September 2015 to August 2017, ESPOL-LAB hosted a post-doctoral researcher, Antonella Seddone, to conduct her research project ‘Between personalization and democratization: the changing role of members within political parties’. As part of the ESPOL-LAB research area ‘Quality of democracy’, this project was funded under the programme ‘Accueil de Jeunes Chercheurs 2015’ by the Conseil Régional Nord – Pas de Calais. During her stay at ESPOL, the post-doctoral researcher published widely in collaboration with members of the research unit, especially with Giulia Sandri. Antonella Seddone continues to work with several colleagues as an associate researcher of ESPOL-LAB.
The ESPOL-LAB team consists of 18 faculty members working on the transformation of European and global politics: thirteen Associate professors, a Professor (HDR), a Lecturer, three Post-doctoral researchers. ESPOL-LAB is headed by Sabine Weiland (Director) and Thierry Chopin (Deputy Director).
ESPOL has also eight associate researchers. We welcome applications of interested researchers to become associated with ESPOL.
ESPOL-LAB is member of the ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research), the principal political science research network in Europe. The ESPOL-LAB team supports the Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée and the Politique européenne journal.
ESPOL welcomes researchers to become associated with the School and, more specifically, with ESPOL-LAB, our Research Centre. The association of researchers serves the purpose of enriching the academic and intellectual life at ESPOL. We invite researchers with a scientific profile matching the research topics pursued at ESPOL to join us as associate researchers.
More information can be found below
28 January 2021 – ESPOL Conference
“Beyond populism: Critical reflections on the debate about populism”
Benjamin DE CLEEN – Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
11 February 2021 – ESPOL Seminar
“The European Union in the Sahel: Projecting stability, transforming the region”
Edoardo BALDARO – Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
4 March 2021 – ESPOL Conference
“Diplomatic courtship and contestation in EU-Russia relations”
Anna-Sophie MAASS – University of Lancaster, United Kingdom
18 March 2021 – ESPOL Conference
“Harassment in Politics. The character, explanations and impact of political harassment”
Karina KOSIARA-PEDERSEN – University of Copenhagen, Denmark
15-16 April 2021 – ESPOL Symposium
“The Making of Modern International Realm: T. Hobbes to J. Bentham”
Benjamin BOURCIER – ESPOL, Université Catholique de Lille, France
Mikko JAKONEN – University of Jyväskylä, Finlande
22 April 2021 – ESPOL Seminar
“Un nouveau droit pour l’anthropocène ?
Vers un droit des relations humains/non-humains ?”
Ferhat TAYLAN – Université de Bordeaux, France
6 May 2021 – ESPOL Seminar
“Militer, soulager, humilier, injurier :
Regards sur le rire politique en France lors des élections présidentielles de 2017”
Guillaume GRIGNARD – Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
6 February 2020 – ESPOL inaugural conference
“Understanding world politics through bordering practices:
from the Caucasus to the Sahara‐Sahel”
Giulia PRELZ OLTRAMONTI – Maîtresse de conférences, ESPOL, Université Catholique de Lille
20 February 2020 – ESPOL seminar
“Politics of irrationality – emerging technologies and their publics”
Gabriel DORTHE – Postdoctoral researcher, ETHICS, Université Catholique de Lille
12 March 2020 – ESPOL seminar – [CANCELLED]
“The norm cluster of sustainability and the global regime complex for food: Norm interpretation and contestation among key international organizations”
Sandra SCHWINDENHAMMER – Assistant Professor, University of Giessen, Allemagne
19 March 2020 – ESPOL inaugural conference – [POSTPONED]
“Rethinking the political economy of food after the 2007/8 global financial crisis”
Elisa GRECO – Maîtresse de conférences, ESPOL, Université Catholique de Lille
24 March 2020 – ESPOL seminar – [POSTPONED TO 19/11/2020]
« La guerre des philosophes, ou : La guerre peut-elle être un objet de la philosophie ? »
Thomas BERNS – Professeur de philosophie politique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgique
26 March 2020 – ESPOL conference – [POSTPONED]
“Compromise and publicity in democracy”
Stéphanie NOVAK – Assistant Professor, Université Ca’ Foscari de Venise, Italie
9 April 2020 – ESPOL seminar – [POSTPONED TO 01/10/2020]
« Vérité, science, pouvoir. Foucault historien des sciences »
Jérôme LAMY– Chargé de recherche, CNRS-CERTOP, Université Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès
24 September 2020 – ESPOL conference
“The politics of covid-19: Cooperation and conflict”
Michael HOLMES– Maître de conférences, ESPOL, Université Catholique de Lille
1 October 2020 – ESPOL seminar
« Vérité, science, pouvoir. Foucault historien des sciences »
Jérôme LAMY– Chargé de recherche, CNRS-CERTOP, Université Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès
15 October 2020 – ESPOL conference
“Demand action or do-it-yourself? Climate justice movements and the changing role of the state”
Joost DE MOOR – Postdoctoral researcher, Stockholm University, Sweden
22 October 2020 – ESPOL seminar – [POSTPONED]
“A gender just and sustainable food system in Europe”
Lara FERGUS – Director Research, Knowledge and Advocacy, Mama Cash, The Hague, Netherlands
6 November 2020 – ESPOL conference
“US presidential elections – European and American perspectives“
Matthew KERBEL – Professor of Political Science, Villanova University, Pennsylvania, USA
Frank PRYOR – Assistant Teaching Professor of Political Science, Villanova University, Pennsylvania, USA
François VERGNIOLLE DE CHANTAL – Professor of American Politics and Government, Université de Paris, France
19 November 2020 – ESPOL seminar
« La guerre des philosophes, ou : La guerre peut-elle être un objet de la philosophie? »
Thomas BERNS – Professeur de philosophie politique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgique
24 January 2019 – ESPOL seminar
“Weapons of Mass Destruction and Global Security”
Paolo FORADORI– Associate Professor, University of Trento
7 February 2019 – ESPOL conference
“Quand l’Europe improvise. Dix ans de crises politiques”
Luuk VAN MIDDELAAR – Université de Leiden
21 March 2019 – ESPOL conference
“1989-2019 : de Vaclav Havel à Viktor Orbàn.
De la démocratie libérale au national-populisme?”
Lukáš MACEK – Sciences Po Dijon
11 April 2019 – ESPOL seminar
“Pour une sociologie des inégalités environnementales”
Valérie DELDRÈVE – Directrice de la recherche, IRSTEA Bordeaux
9 September 2019 – ESPOL opening conference
“Comment revitaliser la démocratie à l’heure de la post-politique ?”
Chantal MOUFFE – Professeure de théorie politique, University of Westminster
3 October 2019 – ESPOL seminar
“Towards an African organic model of agriculture?
Institutionalization’s path comparison between Uganda and Benin”
Pauline BENDJEBBAR – Université Paris Est Marne-la-Vallée et CIRAD
10 October 2019 – ESPOL seminar
“Pour une histoire globale conceptuelle de la Paix”
Thomas HIPPLER – Professeur d’histoire contemporaine, Université de Caen
24 October 2019 – ESPOL conference
“Populism and Euroscepticism”
Duncan McDONNELL – Professor of Politics, Griffith University, Australia
7 November 2019 – ESPOL seminar
“Contributive justice and the importance of
inclusive agricultural innovation system”
Cristian TIMMERMANN– Universidad de Chile, currently Hoover
fellow at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve
15 November 2019 – ESPOL-LAB seminar
“International Political Theory and Economy from Hobbes to Bentham”
Benjamin BOURCIER – ESPOL
21 November 2019 – ESPOL conference
“French Foreign Policy and Identity, or the End of Gaullism?”
Falk OSTERMANN – Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Germany
