Contemplating Havel’s legacy: ‘power and truth remain locked in combat around the world’

Reading Havel’s obituaries, among the many tributes, what resonates with me is Jeffrey Sach’s parallel between Havel’s courage to live in truth and our challenges in today’s world of spin doctors, greed and continued suppression: Havel’s death comes at a time of massive demonstrations in Russia to protest ballot fraud; violence in Egypt as democratic [...]

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EU’s best think tanks worry about the EU’s image in the world

An open letter by leading EU think tank directors to the European Union’s leaders. No comment needed.

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enlargement, deadlock, democracy

A lot of the media attention for the European Council meeting of last week has been so far focused on the rift between the UK and the other member states. Apart from a fleeting announcement that Hungary agreed with the UK stance (quickly withdrawn and more indicative of the confusion arising from the populist rhetoric [...]

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EU Research Digest (November 2011)

During the past few months several important academic articles dealing with EU attitudes and support were published. In this post I will briefly review the most important insights from these studies: First, attitudes towards the European Union are multidimensional. This means that whether you trust the European Parliament for example is not strongly related to some other [...]

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the lessons from Rodrik’s globalisation paradox

Last week we had the pleasure to hear Professor Dani Rodrik deliver the annual lecture of the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). The lecture was a brilliant example how a widely published academic economist, active in the best scientific journals in his field, can fulfill a public role and explain in an elegant, [...]

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EU-uitbreiding en het Nederlandse debat: No lessons learned?

[This is a guest post from our colleagues at Leiden University Hans Vollaard  and Caspar van den Berg] Europa is ineens hot in parlement en media door de Euro-crisis. Wat tijden onmogelijk leek, is nu aan de orde van de dag: uitgebreide berichtgeving over de EU. De redding van de Euro is het gesprek van de [...]

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