Programme

Explore the full programme of the European Studies Day, featuring a keynote lecture, plenary panels, and parallel panels throughout the day.
Programme at glance

9.00-9.20 Coffee  

9.20 Opening and welcome: Johanna Rainio-Niemi/Johanna Kantola 

9.30-10.30 Keynote: : "How Europe Survives: Adaptability and Resilience of a Content in Peril" 

10.45-11.45 Plenary panel: Critical perspectives to current EU politics and law  

11.45-12.45 Lunch (self-financed and self-catered) 

12.45 – 14.00 Parallel panels I  

14.00-14.30 Coffee 

14.30-15.45 Parallel panels II  

16.00-17.15 Plenary panel: The European Union Responding to Power Politics 

17.15 Join us for drinks in Thirsty scholar (own expense) 

The keynote speaker

Catherine E. de Vries is Vice Dean and Professor of Political Science at the School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs (SPEGA) at IE University in Madrid. Previously, she held professorships at Bocconi University, Oxford University, Free University (VU) Amsterdam and visiting posts at UCLA.

De Vries is a leading scholar and voice in the field of European politics. She has published important and widely read books about the complexities of democratic politics and political economy, focusing on themes like populism, public service provision, political corruption and migration. Her keynote is based on her forthcoming Oxford University Press monograph on the challenges and future of European integration. 

Plenary and parallel panels

10.45-11.45 Plenary panel I (Language Centre, Festive Hall, Fabianinkatu 26)

Critical perspectives to current EU politics and law  

Chair: Juha Jokela (Finnish Institute of International Affairs) 

Johanna Kantola (University of Helsinki): The European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen: Gender, Leadership, Policies, and Crises  

Päivi Leino-Sandberg (University of Helsinki): European Integration in the Constitutional Borderlands: Why is critical scholarship needed more than ever  

Annastiina Kallius (University of Helsinki): Far-Right Integration Against All Odds: The European Legacy of the Orbán Era

12.45 – 14.00 Parallel panels I (Language Centre, room TBA, Fabianinkatu 26)

Lobbying, expertise, and legal avenues in the European Union 

Chair: Minna van Gerven (University of Helsinki) 

Salla Mikkonen (University of Eastern Finland): Everyday practices of representation and accountability: Mystery of spokespersons and symbolic power in transnational EU lobbying 

Laura Nordström (University of Helsinki): Big Tech Lobbying in Germany 

Katri Havu (University of Helsinki): Suing the Union: Damages Liability as a Tool of Contestation in Climate and Migration Governance 

Iiris Annala (University of Helsinki): How do social security statistics govern the European Union mobility regime Statistics as instruments for learning and visibility 

Rights, Representation, Democracy: Discourses and Institutions in Historical Perspective  

Chair: Johanna Rainio-Niemi (University of Helsinki) 

Kaius Tuori (University of Helsinki): How did Europe and Rights Talk Unite? The uses of the past in histories of European human rights law 

Ilana Hartikainen (University of Helsinki): The story behind the system: A mnemonic and semiotic approach to democracy and the threats facing it 

William King (HCAS, University of Helsinki): Alternative Paths: Petitioning the European Parliament, 1975-94 

The future of EU integration 

Chair: Päivi Leino-Sandberg (University of Helsinki) 

Juha Kilponen & Jarmo Kontulainen (Bank of Finland): From a single currency to a union of states? 

Antti Ronkainen (University of Helsinki): Agriculture, competitiveness and the re-allocation of EU financing in the new multiannual financial framework  

Simon Fleckenstein (University of Freiburg): The EU as a Green Normative Power? Unpacking Dynamics of Norm Diffusion in Forest Biodiversity Politics 

Jussi Jaakkola (University of Turku): European emancipation entrapped? How the basic contradictions of democratic capitalism re-emerge in EU fiscal integration  

Effects of far right politics in Europe 

Chair: Annastiina Kallius (University of Helsinki) 

Szilvia Howart (University of Helsinki): The rise of the Tisza Party in Hungary: Challenging the illiberal social contract and constructing an alternative discourse 

Valentine Berthet, Matti Pihlajamaa and Johanna Kantola (University of Helsinki): Towards Intersectional Democratic Futures? Constructing Democracy and Feminism in the EU in Times of Anti-Gender Politics 

Alexander Alekseev (University of Helsinki): Together—against the EU? Exploring the Transnational New Right through International Conferences 

Olena Siden (University of Helsinki): Rearticulating Europe from the Right: French Sovereigntism, Europeanness, and the Russo-Ukrainian War

14.30-15.45 Parallel panels II (Language Centre, room TBA, Fabianinkatu 26)

Geopoliticization of Everything? EU Enlargement, Migration Policy and the Green Deal as Sites of a Geopolitical Union

Chairs: Tyyne Karjalainen & Tuomas Iso-Markku (Finnish Institute of International Affairs) 

Manuel Müller: Not a good time for universal values? EU purpose narratives and their implications for foreign and enlargement policy 

Marco Siddi & Federica Prandin (Finnish Institute of International Affairs): Changing EU institutional discourses on the Green Deal: An Analysis of the second Von der Leyen Commission 

Saila Heinikoski (Finnish Institute of International Affairs): Migration as part of the EU’s external relations: conditionality and externalisation as migration diplomacy tools 

Hanna Tuominen (University of Helsinki): Nordic approaches to the EU as a global actor

European sport – policy, history, subculture 

Chair: Sami Koskelainen (University of Helsinki) 

Tuomas Häkli (Jamk University of Applied Sciences): European Union sport policy: between hard law and soft policies  

Sami Koskelainen (University of Helsinki): Integrating into a rigged but redistributive union? European football’s structures and regulations from a Finnish perspective   

Joel Hakkarainen (University of Helsinki): Constructing ‘Modern Hooliganism’ in Finland: Media Representations of Football-Related Disorder   

Forging Moralities: Law, Legitimacy, and Injustice in Europe from Socialism to the Present 

Chair: Ville Erkkilä (University of Helsinki) 

Joonas Timonen (University of Helsinki): Between representation and manipulation: Far-right challenges to the state-society relationship in Finland 

Minna-Kerttu Kekki (University of Helsinki): Law versus morality in Soviet Estonia 

Ville Erkkilä (University of Helsinki): Rural Rights and Political Change: The Reorganization of Property Relations in East Central Europe after the Second World War 

Emmi Kujanpää (University of Helsinki): From a National Symbol to Transnational Artivism: Contemporary Bulgarian Folk Singing and Gendered Forms of Agency 

What is the Place of Ethnography in European Studies? 

Chairs: Lina Klymenko & Kolar Aparna (University of Helsinki) 

Kolar Aparna (University of Helsinki): Politics and Place of Ethnography from europes in margins 

Kristina Jacobsen (University of Helsinki): Sing Me Back Home: Ethnographic Songwriting and Sardinian Language Politics 

Tiina Seppälä (University of Helsinki): Feminist Ethnography and Decolonial Solidarity 

Cherry Miller (University of Helsinki): Gendering the Analysis of Inter-Parliamentary Activities: Video Analysis from the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly 

Lina Klymenko (University of Helsinki): Ethnography in International Relations and Foreign Policy Research

16.00-17.15 Plenary panel II (Language Centre, Festive Hall, Fabianinkatu 26)

The European Union Responding to Power Politics: Evolving Agency, Shifting Norms and the Contested Policy Change  

Chairs: Tyyne Karjalainen & Tuomas Iso-Markku (Finnish Institute of International Affairs) 

Katariina Mustasilta (Finnish Institute of International Affairs): Shifting fundamentals: What follows the liberal peacebuilding paradigm for the EU as a peace actor?  

Tomi Kristeri (Finnish Institute of International Affairs): Balancing Against Weaponized Interdependence: Understanding the EU’s Geoeconomic Power  

Sanna Salo & Juha Jokela (Finnish Institute of International Affairs): Whose norms? Enlargement policy and contestation on democratic norms in the European Union  

Tyyne Karjalainen & Marco Siddi (Finnish Institute of International Affairs): From role change to policy change: EU member states and change in EU foreign policy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine