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Department of Political and Social Sciences

We focus on contemporary challenges facing European politics and societies

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Doctoral Programme

The core mission of the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences (SPS) is the recruitment, training, and placement of early career researchers from throughout Europe.

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People

Our Faculty, Doctoral Researchers and Postdocs come from a broad range of countries spanning all Europe and beyond.

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Research

We focus on the interplay of institutional dynamics with their behavioural context.

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Seminars & Teaching

We are one of Europe’s leading centres for research on comparative politics, political behaviour and political sociology, the sociology of inequality, analytic sociology, and international relations and security.

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About

We conceptualise institutions dynamically by studying the interactions between institutions – both formal and informal - and their behavioural context. This applies to the analysis of the impact of party competition on public policies, changing family structures and their consequences for inequalities, changing norms of governance and conflict and their implications for politics and geo-politics.

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News

Jona de Jong awarded Linz Rokkan prize

Jona de Jong awarded 2025 Linz Rokkan Prize

This year’s Linz Rokkan Prize for the Best EUI Doctoral Thesis in Political Sociology was awarded to Jona de Jong during the EUI Degree Conferring Ceremony on 13 June 2025.

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SPS theses of the month: June

The Department of Political and Social Sciences is delighted to announce that during the month of June, 12 researchers have successfully defended their dissertations.

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Annamaria Laudini explores shifting dynamics of caste and gender in migration

What happens to deeply rooted social hierarchies associated with caste and gender when people move across borders, and how do they, in turn, shape migratory paths? Annamaria Laudini, PhD researcher at the EUI, explores these questions through ethnographic fieldwork in Italy and Punjab.

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Events

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1 September 2025

Summer school

Department of Political and Social Sciences

SPS Summer Academy

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Publications

The Department of Political and Social Sciences (SPS) specialises in comparative politics, sociology, political and social theory and international relations.

Browse all the SPS Departments repository

Book

Pandemic Polity-Building : How Covid-19 Shaped the European Union

In 2020, the European Union faced the COVID-19 crisis. This book tells the unlikely story of how the European Union survived a crisis that arrived on the heels of a difficult decade during which...

Truchlewski, Zbigniew; Ioana- Elena, Oana; Alexandru D, Moise; Hanspeter, Kriesi
2025

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Pandemic Polity-Building : How Covid-19 Shaped the European Union

Book

Who's afraid of the welfare state now?

The book examines European welfare-policy responses to the Great Recession and COVID-19, highlighting diverse reforms, fiscal challenges, and social impacts.

HEMERIJCK, Anton; MATSAGANIS, Manos
2024

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Who's afraid of the welfare state now?

Article

Struggles over epistemic capital : complex governance objects and the making of lethal autonomous weapons systems

The regulation of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) has emerged as a salient and perplexing issue in global governance, especially in the UN GGE on LAWS. This article argues that contentions...

WINDFELD, Frederik Carl
2025

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Struggles over epistemic capital : complex governance objects and the making of lethal autonomous weapons systems

Article

Adjudicando protección : el proceso de refugio para personas LGBTQI+ en Sudamérica

En varias partes del mundo, las personas LGBTQI+ aún enfrentan persecución producto de legislaciones restrictivas, violencia social y discriminación institucionalizada debido a...

SCUZARELLO, Esteban Octavio
2025

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Adjudicando protección : el proceso de refugio para personas LGBTQI+ en Sudamérica

Article

The times, are they changing? : examining platform companies' chameleonic labour process as a response to the Spanish 'Ley Rider'

This article investigates the effects of the Spanish initiative to deploy a universal presumption of employment relationship for all platform couriers (Ley Rider). Drawing from 36 semi-structured...

FERRAZ VIEIRA, Tiago Alexandre; MENDONÇA, Pedro
2024

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The times, are they changing? : examining platform companies' chameleonic labour process as a response to the Spanish 'Ley Rider'

Book

Dialogue with the Chinese school of IR theory : A CJIP reader

The Chinese School of IR Theory: Ignored Process, Controversial Progress, and Uncertain Prospects -- Images of a Statist Ethic in “Western” and Chinese IR Theory: Locating (and...

LU, Peng; REN, Xiao; ERSKINE, Toni; GUZZINI, Stefano
2024

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Dialogue with the Chinese school of IR theory : A CJIP reader

Journal article

New directions for foreign policy analysis

This special issue explores new directions in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) and Diplomatic Studies, focusing on interpretivist approaches. It connects these debates to Brazil’s dominant...

SALGADO, Carolina; SIMAN, Maíra; GUZZINI, Stefano
2024

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New directions for foreign policy analysis

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Video Spotlight

#MyEUIResearch with Meret Stephan | Treading the protest path

The EUI PhD programme in Political and Social Sciences

A PhD at the EUI - Start the intellectual adventure of a lifetime

Department of Political and Social Sciences

Villa Sanfelice

Via dei Roccettini, 3
50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI)