William Outhwaite is Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University. His recent books include (with Larry Ray) Social Theory and Postcommunism (Blackwell, 2005); European Society (Polity, 2008); Habermas: a critical introduction (2nd edition, Polity, 2009) and Critical Theory and Contemporary Europe (Compendium 2012). The European Union has often …
The impact of the mass media on the quality of democracy within a state
Lisa Müller is the author of Comparing Mass Media in Established Democracies (Palgrave, 2014). She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Zurich in 2012. Her research interests include democracy theory and measurement, comparative media research and …
Strengthening democracy and civil society via LGBT
Omar G. Encarnación is Professor of Political Studies at Bard College, New York, where he teaches comparative politics and Iberian and Latin American studies. He is the author of Latin America’s Gay Rights Revolution, forthcoming from Oxford University Press. How …
EU funding for civil society organisations
Rosa Sanchez Salgado is an Assistant Professor of European Public Policy at the University of Amsterdam. Her previous research has principally focused on efforts by EU institutions, above all the Commission, to shape civil society organisations. A number of civil society organisations …
Less than 36.8% of MEPs are female
Máriam Martínez-Bascuñán is an Assistant Professor and based at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. Her work focuses on social and political philosophy and feminist theory. Procedures for raising the number of female politicians in parliaments and governments have been …
The death of European states
Dimitris Ballas is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield. Danny Dorling is a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford. Benjamin Hennig is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Geography and the …
Democratic legitimacy & decisions at the EU
Sonia Alonso is a Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and editor of the Spanish political blog Agenda Pública. Juan Rodríguez Teruel is Lecturer in Political Science in the University of Valencia. His research focuses on political elites, …
The Spanish government and Catalonia
In April, the Spanish parliament rejected a request by Catalan authorities to hold a referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain, which had been proposed for November this year. Diego Muro and Martijn Vlaskamp argue that the Spanish government requires a more positive message for …
The lesson from flight MH17
The crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) has provoked intense debate over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, but what lessons should the crash have for aviation safety? Simon Bennett writes that we must learn from the experience of MH17 and other …
Scottish independence a ‘domino effect’
Scotland is due to hold a referendum on independence from the UK on 18 September. Luis Moreno writes on the European dimension to the referendum, noting that Scotland has a more pro-EU outlook than the rest of the country. He argues that …