This page provides details of current research projects which are currently being undertaken by members of the Assessing Accession Research Network. All of these project focus on the EU's Central and East European member states.
If you would like details of your project to be disseminated or advertised to the Assessing Accession network and to the wider European Studies community, then please use the contact us form to send us an email with full details of your project, including the project title, funding partners, project website (if available), contact details and a brief synopsis of the project.
Post Enlargement Constitutionalization in Central and Eastern Europe
Constitutionalism studies acquired new scientific interest after the collapse of communism in Europe. Since the 1990s European constitutional theory and practice have been the theatre of evolutionary dynamics that have carried it eastwards. The project is founded on the current trends of constitutionalization in the European continent, triggered and enhanced by the recent enlargement of the European Union (EU) to Central and Eastern Europe.
Some of the project’s objectives are: The enhancement of the understanding of the transfer of constitutional norms in Europe with emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe; Giving CEE scholars an opportunity to study the phenomenon in depth in the context of Swiss and EU perspective and the establishment of a roundtable of Swiss and Central and Eastern European experts that will critically assess the dynamics of constitutionalization in CEE.
The universities and research institutes involved into the project are the University of Lucerne (Switzerland), Charles University (Czech Republic), Jagiellonian University (Poland), Central European University (Hungary), New Bulgarian University (Bulgaria), Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary) and the International University Audentes (Estonia).
For more information on the project please contact Kyriaki Topidi (email kyriaki.topidi@unilu.ch) or visit the website (link www.constitutionalization.ch)
European Minority Rights Regime: Power, Interests & Knowledge
More than any previous EU enlargement, the 2004 and 2007 rounds highlighted the issue of national minorities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). While the EU was primarily responsible for candidates’ compliance with minority criteria, the OSCE and the Council of Europe also played an important monitoring role. The cooperation among these three organisations on minority rights since the end of the Cold War and particularly in the context of the recent enlargements has arguably led to the creation of a European minority rights regime.
The project has a number of research objectives. It seeks to explore the development of the European minority rights regime; the extent of coordination among the three organizations; and the impact of the regime in three case studies: Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania. The relevant minorities in the cases are Russophones, Turks and Hungarians, respectively. While there is an extensive literature on EU conditionality, the role of regional organizations in European integration, and a growing interest in the post-enlargement effects of the EU’s minority condition, we argue for a greater understanding of these elements as an international regime.
But how does the European minority rights regime work? To explain its functioning we consider three competing approaches in the international regime literature: interests, power and knowledge. Each approach suggests different assumptions to help explain international cooperation and generates separate hypotheses to analyse the European minority rights regime.
For more information on the project please contact David Galbreath or visit the project website.
Governance for Sustainability (G-FORS)
Governance for Sustainability (G-FORS) is a three year research project which brings together EURA members. The project is funded by the EU Commission's Research Framework Programme 6 priority 7 (Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-Based Society - The Implications of European Integration and Enlargement for Governance and the Citizen) and brings together the Metropolregion of Hannover, EUROCITIES as well as ten universities and research institutes.
These are: University of the West of England, Bristol, Darmstadt University of Technology, University of Warsaw, University of Twente, Politecnico di Milano, University of Göteborg, Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Panteion University, Centre for Regional Studies of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the Erkner (Germany) based Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning.
The G-FORS STREP will develop an innovative analytical model for the study of governance for sustainability, focusing on the synergy between new governance modes and different forms of knowledge, taking into account the rapid changes in the knowledge society. For this purpose, G-FORS will identify a range of different forms of knowledge and analyse how these different forms of knowledge may interact in the context of particular governance arrangements to produce `reflexive knowledge' and contribute to a more legitimate understanding of sustainability.
For more information please contact Georgios Terizakis or visit the project website.