By Tom Junes, Marie Curie Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence Poland was long seen as the poster child of the post-1989 transition in Central and Eastern Europe. Consequentially, for commentators, policy-makers, and scholars alike, it served as a model for European integration and the EU enlargement to the East. At present,...
By Oliver Schmidtke, director of the Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria See also the CTV interview on the success of the right-wing Alternative for Germany in regional elections The vote in the German state of Thuringia (a region formerly part of the Communist German Democratic Republic) was foremost a blow to the Germany’s...
On Spain’s November 10th General Election, by Pablo Ouziel , Department of Political Science and Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria Listen also to today's radio interview from today at the Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook. As Spain’s citizenry prepares to head to the polls on November 10 th – for the second general election...
New blog post by Pablo Ouziel, Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria "... Instead of ‘demoarchy’, the Greeks chose the term ‘democracy’ to signal the fact that what they envisioned was not a form of rule (arche). Protagoras, Pericles, and Meletus described it as a non-elite telic mode of governance in which all citizens were...
"...There are many ways to obfuscate or evade surveillance systems, but one of the biggest problems we face has to do with our social imaginary. Despite the numerous warnings we receive about the dangers of surveillance, until we can imagine our societies working in a different manner, surveillance seems to be here to stay. It will continue to...
Rich debates on the crises of democracies are in the center of our project activities financed with the support of the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet programme of the European Union. Year one of our Jean Monnet project CEDoD - Canada Europe Dialogue on Democracy - allowed the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria to house an event series...
New blog contribution by Pablo Ouziel, Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria Reflections on the talk and presentations given at the Political Theory Research Group seminar, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona on June 20 th 2019 On June 20 th 2019, I had the pleasure of initiating a multilogue on Spain’s 15M democratization...
Responding to Forced Migration and Refugees with Innovative Policies: Examining Europe and Turkey During the Canadian Council for Refugees Consultation ( 30 May - 1 June 2019, Victoria, BC; Roots: Reconciling the global with the local) our project Canada Europe Dialogue on Migration is organizing two public events. The first one is on May 29th...
European Parliament elections: A ‘battle for the future of Europe’ or referenda on national governments? By Oliver Schmidtke , Director of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria and former European Community Studies Association (ECSA-C) president Between May 22 and May 26 EU citizens have the opportunity to cast their vote in...
Graduate students in Victoria, Canada, debate the approach to readings on “democracy from below” by Ryan Beaton, March 2, 2019 While the preparations for a gathering of a s cholarly discussion on the Futures of Democracy in Victoria BC take place, a pre-seminar organized by graduate students discusses a series of readings by Fonna Forman and...
Poland’s Political Tribulations