Thursday Seminars

Second Class: Public Opinion Perceptions of Naturalized Citizens' Rights and Duties  Bio Bruno Castanho Silva is an Assistant Professor for Methods in Empirical Social Research at the Institute of Sociology and Otto-Suhr Institute of Political Science at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Central European University (Budapest, […]

Stating the obvious? Far-right frames of climate change acceptance in the European Parliament Abstract In a rapidly warming world, climate obstruction has become a central challenge of global governance - exacerbated by the rising influence of far-right actors. Far-right ideology is understood as inherently incompatible with climate policy, particularly when interpreted through a populist lens. When considered a […]

The Possibility of Global Governance An ethics of care for our contemporary coexistence. Abstract The Possibility of Global Governance is a reflective exercise in the applied philosophy of ethics, and to some extent also in the poetics of ethics. My aim is to present a normative ethics idea open for reflection and discussion, namely that […]

Children as Climate Citizens – Presentism with Long-Term Interests  Abstract:  Based on her book, Kata Dozsa presents the concept of “children as climate citizens” across three key avenues of participation: climate governance, grassroots youth social movements, and climate litigation. Presentism is a defining feature of children’s climate citizenship: children living today are directly and disproportionately affected by climate change, with immediate […]

From the ashes of disruption: the search for human-centric AI innovation Abstract While generative AI promises efficiency gains in newsgathering, production, verification, and audience engagement, it also raises significant concerns regarding accuracy, bias, transparency, and professional autonomy. Drawing on a review of public service media AI initiatives and expert insights from Europe and Canada, as […]

Foes or Fellow Citizens? Perception of Democratic Legitimacy and Political Polarization Bio Rebekka Kesberg is a senior researcher at the University of Sussex (United Kingdom) and the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). She completed her PhD in social psychology at Ulm University (Germany), where she studied how human values shape perception, attitudes, and behavior.  Following her PhD, she […]

Why AI Technosolutionism Harms Democracy and Deliberation  Abstract Technology has recently entered the scene of deliberative democracy, both as a subject of deliberation and as a way to improve deliberative processes. The hegemonic position in this debate within the deliberative democracy community appears to be that, while it is not a bulletproof solution, technology—and more […]

Kids on Climate Abstract This presentation outlines the theoretical framework of the KIDSONCLIMATE project, as well as an update on the ongoing fieldwork. This project aims to explore how the emotions that children and pre-adolescents may experience through learning about the climate crisis can influence their attitudes toward democracy and their sense of political efficacy. […]

Unpacking the Framing of Democracy in EU Institutional Discourses on Disinformation Mitigation  Abstract How do European institutions frame democracy in their discourses and policies about disinformation mitigation? Disinformation is often presented by EU institutions as a threat to democracy that must be resolved (Navarro et al., 2025), which has led to the development of multiple intervention strategies. […]

Are parliaments at risk of becoming irrelevant? More details soon

Do life events affect political attitudes? Bio Mark Brandt is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University and is currently a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. His research goal is to understand the causes and consequences of political, religious, and moral beliefs that can ultimately be leveraged […]

Media effects of digital and mobile communication More details soon