ECPR's Standing Group on the European Union Early Careers Online Workshop

Studying the EU in times of permanent emergency: Research agendas, methods and theories

ECPR invites contributions related to EU studies, specifically those addressing new research agendas, methodologies and innovative theoretical approaches that capture what has been described in the literature as times of ‘permanent emergency’ (Wolff and Ladi, 2021), ‘polycrisis’ (Zeitlin and al., 2019), ‘permacrisis’ (Zuleeg and al., 2019).

These concepts account for the rapidly transforming EU governance and policies through a series of contestations of its model in (potential) candidate countries, the importance of the far-right in EU domestic politics, the challenges to the rule of law inside the EU and with the potential to fracture the EU with new transversal cleavages.

At the same time, following the pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine, the EU has proven resilient, demonstrating unity with Brexit, being proactive on sanctions towards Russia and with ambitions on the green and digital agenda but also regarding its strategic autonomy.

Contributions should seek to address the following questions:

• What tools are being mobilised to address these changes?
• What theories and methodologies are required to capture the state of ‘permanent emergency’?