Public lecture

Press release — 12 February 2014

Professor Luca Verzichelli from the University of Sienna will give a public lecture entitled

THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO BRUSSELS. ELITE CIRCULATION BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS

on 19 February 2014 from 16.15-17.45 at the faculty of Social Sciences, Lossi 36-305.

The talk aims at reassessing the meaning of a phenomenon which is somehow implicit in the broad European Integration literature, but at the same time it seems to be rather neglected from the empirical studies: the inclination of domestic leaders and policy makers to “run Europe”, thinking themselves as the actors of a truly multi-level polity.

Survey-based studies and biographical data will be combined in the paper, to provide a comprehensive description of the problem. A number of propositions about the explanation of the difficulties in creating a truly supranational political elite will be then discussed, in the attempt to complete a satisfactory framework for the analysis of the future EU elite system, just when an announced critical turn of European elections approaches.

Luca Verzichelli is Professor of Public Policy Analysis and Italian Politics at the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Sienna. Previously he was Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Bologna and Associate Professor at University of Sienna. He held visiting fellowships at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford (2005-2006), Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Cologne (spring 2007), Université de Montreal (May 2009), Australian National University (August 2011). He is also a member of the Editorial Council of “Il Mulino” (2012-) and chief editor of Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica (2010-). His research interests include empirical analysis of the political elites in Italy and Europe, budgetary politics in Italy and USA and European Parliament and the political class.

The lecture is organized by the Institute of Government and Politics and the Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) at the University of Tartu.