The Politics and Power Research Group includes political science, international relations, strategic studies, anthropology, and political economy researchers. These researchers contribute to the production of knowledge at CAPP and its application in policy design, implementation, and evaluation. The researchers’ work provides critical insights into political institutions, processes, actors, and interactions at the local, national, and global levels, offering a richer understanding of contemporary political challenges and potential solutions.
The research group focuses on topics such as:
01. Democracy and Democratic Processes: The researchers aim to gain insights into contemporary democratic governance and comparative perspectives by studying institutions, processes, actors, and political interactions. They focus on various topics such as normative foundations, transitions and consolidation, institutional design and accountability, quality of democracy, elections and electoral systems, representation, political participation and mobilisation, attitudes and political behaviour, parties and party systems, and political communication. The researchers are particularly interested in democracy stability and contemporary challenges facing democracies.
02. European Union Affairs: In the context of the European Union's strategic priorities and challenges, researchers have been analysing three main interrelated areas: (1) polity, governance, and institutions. The research focuses on democracy, the rule of law, integration and multilevel governance, EU enlargement, and institutional reform; (2) geoeconomics, international political economy, and external relations. The research focuses on monetary integration, multilateralism, international cooperation, and EU strategic autonomy; (3) social and economic challenges. The research focuses on developing the internal market, cohesion, economic growth, inclusion, sustainability, and the social Europe agenda.
03. Borders, Migrations, and Identities: Researchers explore the relationship between state and symbolic borders and their impact on migration and identity. The analysis focuses on the perspective of social actors with an emphasis on their positionality. The research privileges identity politics, nationalism and transnationalism, border and migration regimes, and citizenship. Assuming power as diffused through society, the research focuses on the relationship between people and institutions, negotiation processes, state performance and rituals, and symbolic and political violence.
04.Security and Defence: Researchers are interested in contemporary security and defence challenges. The analysis focuses on the following topics: (1) threat analysis, impact evaluation and mitigation strategies associated with technological disruption, cyber security vulnerabilities, geopolitical tensions, and conflicts; (2) application of cutting-edge technologies to strengthen defence mechanisms and safeguard against constantly evolving threats; (3) policy frameworks and implementation to offer comprehensive solutions to contemporary security, strategic and defence dilemmas.
Researchers in the Politics and Power research group include: