My research interests revolve around the role of discourse and language in international relations and diplomacy, as well as developments in EU’s CFSP/ESDP and Enlargement policy. My research follows the trend of recent additions to new institutionalist theory, which take into account discourse as an explanatory factor for policy changes (discursive institutionalism, constructivist institutionalism).
Current research projects:
I joined the ‘GLOBUS – Reconsidering European Contributions to Global Justice’ in October 2016. GLOBUS is a research project that critically examines the European Union’s contribution to global justice. ombining normative and empirical research GLOBUS explores underlying political and structural obstacles to justice. Analyses of the EU’s positions and policies are combined with in-depth studies of non-European perspectives on the practices of the EU. Particular attention is paid to the fields of migration, trade and development, cooperation and conflict, as well as climate change. More on the project can be found on the GLOBUS website.
Finished reserach projects:
Discourse formation in the EU CFSP/ESDP: The role of non-elected actors in the policymaking process before and after Lisbon (PhD Dissertation)
I joined the Department as a PhD student in December 2010 as one of the two Early Stage Researchers taking part in the INCOOP research network on inter-and intra-institutional cooperation in the EU (http://www.in-coop.eu). I am working on intra-institutional cooperation within the Council of the EU and its surrounding institutions (working groups, agencies, committees). More particularly, I analyze the lower levels of the CFSP/ESDP policy making process and the role of non-elected actors on setting the overall EU foreign policy discourse. I analyse and theorise the decision making process in Brussels in order to understand why and when the EU deploys missions abroad. More particularly I look at the EU’s three mission in the Horn of Africa, which aims to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia.