Latest posts
Cameron’s Petard
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After an eventful few weeks in the life of David Cameron’s EU policy, some of the heat has gone out of matters, albeit only in the sense that the heat shifted to the question of gay marriages. Interesting then, how much more willing Cameron has...
Righteousness and risk in building a European policy
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Another week, another car-crash of public policy. After last night’s vote on the amendment to the Queen’s speech – with more than half of all Tory backbenchers voting in favour of the motion – it is hard to see how today&rsquo...
It’s Europe day, so let’s talk Europe
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As you are all doubtless aware, today is Europe day, the 63rd anniversary of Robert Schuman’s declaration on the creation of a coal and steel community that was to become the precursor to the current European Union. Everyone knows that, right?
Spring is in the air
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It’s the start of May, so it’s local election time! While others celebrate workers or socialism, the British go out and vote for their councilors. For me, that means a couple of things. Firstly, that I’m likely to be asked into the...
The EU as a power-diffuser
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Fighting my prejudices, I went to a seminar about CFSP yesterday. In my defence, I was a) tired and b) knew that both speakers would be well worth it. And indeed they were. Just to be clear, my prejudice is that the EU’s foreign and security po...
There’s no such thing as ‘nation’
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I spent yesterday morning watching the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, while sat in a radio studio, commentating for BBC Surrey. My fellow commentator (in a studio in Brighton) was Peter Bruinvels, a former MP and now a Canon. It would be disingenuous...
Boston Marathon Bombings: Early Thoughts of a Fellow Runner
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On Sunday, accompanied by several friends, I watched the end of the Brighton Marathon. We stood, just before the 42km (roughly 26 mile) marker, cheering on runners who have put in months of hard training to get to that highly emotional stage of...
A Teaching Moment: Gender and Security
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In Week 7, before the Easter break, I was due to teach on the topic of gender in my Level 5 Security Studies module. I was extremely reluctant to perform the same lecture format as usual for this particular topic and so spent a few hours putting toge...
Eppur si muove: Britain and the EU
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Having already spent some time this week discussing Thatcher and the EU, there is a temptation to revisit the topic as part of the on-going efforts by (seemingly) every political commentator in the country to appropriate her memory. However, such obs...
Margaret Thatcher and the EU: Neither a saint nor a sinner
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In one of those odd coincidences, I have been thinking about Margaret Thatcher recently. I got an email a couple of weeks ago, about a chapter on her that I had written for an edited collection three years ago: The editors have just got around...
Affective identity and the EU
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One of my twitter correspondents – Purple Revolution - has come back to me several times ony postings about making the EU work (e.g. last week’s). PR’s argument is that since the Union lacks any affective identification (i.e. people...
Defending the EU
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Somewhat embarrassingly (at least as a political scientist), I’ve only just read Matt Flinder’s Defending Politics, occasioned by my award this week. What Flinders argues is that the current malaise around politics in general, and d...
Everyone’s a winner
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I won a prize last night: I am now the proud recipient of the Political Studies Association’s 2012 Sir Bernard Crick award for outstanding teaching. And since the judges did commend my use of online media, I guess it’s inevitable that I w...
A New, Post-Berezovsky Era?
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With the death of Boris Berezovsky over the weekend, old rumours and speculation were in abundance in the British media. It is being widely suggested that he may have taken his own life, a not unlikely scenario considering the huge personal and finan...
The Spectre of an Unhappy Triangle Gone: Cyprus, Russia and the EU
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It is with mixed feelings that we should have read the news that Michalis Sarris, the Cypriot Finance Minister, left Moscow without an answer to Cyprus’s economic ills. Whatever the responsibility of economic and political elites in Cyprus, it...
Whose fault is everything?
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This week i have watched the unedifying saga of the Cypriot bailout with rather less disbelief than I would have liked: given the length of negotiations, it is somewhat surprising that everyone is washing their hands of it, but at least it suggests t...
The End of Europe
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As the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Western ideas looked set to dominate global politics for some time to come. Quickly, however, the West began to shrink and to become synonymous with the USA as Europe became increasingly preoccupi...
Reciprocity as the basis of European integration
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In recent weeks, I’ve been caught up in a number of conversations with academics, practitioners and general members of the public about how the EU works. One common theme running through these discussions has been the idea that any one country...
Theory and Practice: Overcoming Anxieties In Learning
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I have had conversations with a few FHEQ level 5 students this week about the POL 2031 Foreign Policy Analysis module – and the conversations are familiar from all the years of teaching on a variety of modules. It’s worth, therefore, thin...
Denmark, Ireland and the UK as Constitutional Entrepreneurs in the EU
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Today and tomorrow sees a special conference organised by UACES to mark 40 years of British, Irish and Danish membership of the European Union. As part of that, I’m presenting my paper on how we might see the membership of the Three as a positi...
