PLEASE NOTE: As catering is provided at this event, please only register if you are sure you will be able to attend. If you have registered and subsequently cannot attend, please de-register and/or let us know (Email: admin@isrf.org)

The Independent Social Research Foundation (www.isrf.org) is dedicated to advancing the social sciences through the promotion of new modes of inquiry and the development of interdisciplinary expertise and methods, and through better understanding of social entities and processes. To achieve this objective, the ISRF offers research grants and enters into partnerships with institutions that promote development in interdisciplinary social research.

One such partner is The Conversation (theconversation.com/uk), an online news platform that derives its current affairs stories by guiding academics to write about their current research in a style more accessible to popular audiences. The ISRF funds the post of Interdisciplinary Editor at The Conversation UK - the Editor, Josephine Lethbridge, works with scholars at The Conversation’s member universities, as well as past and present Fellows of the ISRF, to bring interdisciplinary social research to millions of readers worldwide

At two related but distinct research events in The Netherlands - at Universiteit Leiden (2nd October 2018) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (3rd October 2018) - the ISRF intends to facilitate conversations around pressing political issues facing Europe - Referenda and Euroskepticism - whilst highlighting the value that publications such as The Conversation can bring to widening public debate. Each event will comprise a presentation from Stephen Khan, Editor of the U.K. branch of the The Conversation about the value of such a news platform: the benefits that it can bring to universities and the professional trajectories of individual researchers, and also, its important role in countering ‘fake news’. This presentation will be followed by specially invited lectures on ‘Referenda’ (Universiteit Leiden) and ‘Euroskepticism’ (VU Amsterdam), responses from ISRF Fellows, and plenty of time for open discussion among the audience.

DAY TWO: EUROSKEPTICISM

Academic consensus has it that we now live in an age of epidemic Euroskepticism. The adjective seems apt as many academics and other intellectuals regard Euroskepticism as a kind of pathology, the irrational antipathy of uninformed citizens and their malignant leaders. In this view, Euroskepticism is just one ingredient of a toxic soup, together with nationalism, populism, and illiberalism.

However understandable and often justified this characterisation, we ask what we might find if we take another look at the Euroskeptic upsurge. To what extent is scepticism about European integration fuelled by Politik at home? Is Euroskepticism one-of-a-kind or can it be distinguished by different forms, and how prevalent are these? Is Euroskepticism a by-product of the politicization and democratization of European politics per se? Could it be a healthy corrective rather than a dangerous backlash? And could it be that the Euroskeptics, very much like the anti-Federalists at the time of the American Founding, have a point or two?

These are some of the questions that we want to address in this seminar. Our purpose is not to argue for or against the European Union, much less for or against political extremisms, rather to take a fresh look at Euroskepticism as an important political phenomenon. The seminar brings together scholars from empirical political science as well as normative political theory and from related fields.

DOWNLOAD PROGRAMME (Includes Day One)

CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE

• Catherine de Vries - Professor of Political Behaviour in Europe, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
• Stephen Khan - Editor, The Conversation UK
• Patrick Overeem - Assistant Professor in Political Theory, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

For more information about the REFERENDA day in Leiden on 2nd October, and to register for that day, CLICK HERE.