Democracy contested in turbulent times

European citizens will participate in the tenth elections to the European Parliament (EP) between 6-9 June 2024. The subsequent selection of a new European Commission will take “into account the elections to the European Parliament.” Since the last EP elections, the European Union (EU) and the world have experienced a global pandemic, producing the unprecedented recovery plan NextGenerationEU. As the pandemic began to wane, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine which required new approaches to the EU’s Common and Foreign Security Policy and the security policy of Member States. In combination with more overt economic competition with China, Europe may be entering a new era of industrial policy, upending standard expectations about the EU’s role in markets. Europe’s role in the world is further called into question by the war between Hamas and Israel, and the challenges this poses for EU unity in its foreign policy. All of these developments take place as extreme weather events across Europe and the world make the climate emergency facing humanity glaringly apparent. In short, there is need for decisive action from the EU on multiple important policy areas. This electoral moment is set to gauge the commitment to the liberal democratic values underpinning the European project and the durability of the electoral connection between citizens and EU institutions.  

The aim of the SNES Spring Conference 2024 is to bring together junior and senior scholars in the field of EU and European studies. The organizing committee welcomes contributions addressing a European dimension in these and related themes under the substantive and methodologically broad and inclusive heading “Democracy Contested.”  

The conference is co-organized by the Department of Political Science, Lund University and the Swedish Network for European Studies in Political Science (SNES), in collaboration with  the Centre of European Studies at Lund University and the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies (SIEPS).