The fall of dictatorship in Portugal, Spain, and Greece: 50 years on

On 28 May, SEESOX, in cooperation with  the European Studies Centre (ESC) hosted a panel on the fall of dictatorship, and the transitions to democracy, including their legacies on current political developments in Spain, Portugal, and Greece.

The panel consisted of Joao Carlos Espada, Professor at the Institute for Political Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal, Ainhoa Campos Posada, historian at the Universidad Complutense Madrid, and Harris Mylonas, Associate Professor at George Washington University’ Elliott School of International Affairs, focusing on Portugal, Spain, and Greece, respectively. The seminar was chaired by ESC and SEESOX director, Othon Anastasakis.

According to Joao Carlos Espada Portugal, Spain, and Greece are the first cases of what Samuel Huntington called “the third wave of world democratisation” which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism in Central and Easter Europe.

He argued that the military coup that heralded the establishment of democracy in Portugal on 25 April 1974 was followed by a clash between two radically different conceptions of democracy: on the one hand, popular/populist democracy, which was supported by the Communists in Portugal, and on the other, parliamentary democracy. Although (or perhaps because) the Communists were electorally beaten in the first democratic Portuguese elections in April 1975, they attempted a coup in November 1975 and they were defeated by a coalition of left and center-right parties led by Mário Soares, the leader of the Socialist party and lifelong opponent of the far right dictatorship of Salazar.

Dreaming of Europe: Work refugees and the migration crisis

On 28 May 2024, SEESOX, and the European Studies Centre (ESC) hosted Randall Hansen, Canada Research Chair in the Department of Political Science and, Director of the Global Migration Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School, to discuss his upcoming book Dreaming of Europe: Refugees and the Old Continent. Joining the panel to discuss Professor Hansen’s recent work was Catherine Briddick, Andrew W Mellon Associate Professor of International Human Rights and Refugee Law, and a Fellow of St Antony's College. Othon Anastasakis, ESC Director, chaired the seminar.

Through this research project, Hansen sought to understand the migration crisis from the perspective of the refugees themselves. He had undertaken ethnographic research in multiple sites in Europe and Africa, and started his presentation by illustrating the issue at hand through three vignettes. Each of them told the painful story of the arduous and precarious journeys of refugees from Mali, Cameroon, and Nigeria respectively.

He then framed the narrative of the migration crisis and his latest research on the rise of far-right politics in Europe. He argued that because most people in Europe believe the European Union is bad for migration, it is important to ‘get it right’ – that is, it is important to dispel the migration myths and strive to clearly understand the migration problem and implement effective policies to address it.

Hansen first underscored that Europe and the rich countries of the Global North are not hosting the bulk of the world refugee population; 75 percent of the refugees are in the Global South. The EU, according to him, is doing a bit more than the other rich countries, but not much more. This lack of burden-sharing is particularly important since Hansen considered that the West – and Russia – bear the greatest responsibility for the wars that have forced people to become refugees.

Reconceptualising the EU-member states’ relationship in the age of permanent emergency

On Wednesday 8 May, the SEESOX hosted a presentation by Stella Ladi (Queen Mary University of London) on “Coordinative Europeanisation.” Since 2008, the European Union has been engulfed in several crises. While distinct, these crises are feeding into each other and are testing the capacity and resilience of EU and member states. With the Covid-19 crisis, there has been a trend towards a new mode of “coordinative Europeanisation” in EU decision-making, altering the relationships between EU-member states in pursuit of fast policy responses.

Ladi defined coordinative Europeanisation as “a process where increased and often informal coordination between EU member states and EU institutions takes place during a crisis’ early stages in view of quickly devising policy solutions that work for everyone, thereby enhancing decision-making speed, reform ownership and policy compliance.” Coordinative Europeanisation, Ladi argued, may coexist with other pre-existing modes of Europeanisation, such as soft Europeanisation and coercive Europeanisation. At the same time, de-Europeanisation trends have also emerged.

In her research, Ladi seeks to understand the public policy agenda of the EU, asking whether the EU is managing to adequate
ly respond to global crises using existing as well as novel means. She raised three questions in particular. Firstly, in which policy areas is coordinative Europeanisation taking place? Secondly, is coordinative Europeanisation always linked to a crisis and/or an emergency? And thirdly, what kind of policy and governance solutions emerge out of these crises and how successful and long-lasting are they?