Workshop on political history and European integration co-organized by Karin van Leeuwen

On January 30 a workshop with the title "New Political History and European Integration: Third international workshop" will be held at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities, Department of History, European Studies and Religious Studies. 

Until the recent past, many historians of European integration tended to classify the European Communities and the European Union as “foreign affairs”. The national member states and their governments were regarded as the exclusive mediators between their citizens and “Europe” in the process of integration. In contrast, “New Political History” emphasizes the complexity of the multilevel “European” architecture and governance by focusing, for instance, on the transnational transfer of ideas and institutions, on established political cultures interacting in a new context or the performativity of supranational policy-making. The objectives of the workshop “New Political History and European integration” are twofold. Firstly, to discuss the relevance and practicability of the pioneering approaches and research questions subsumed under “New Political History” for the study of the history of European integration. Secondly, to bring together historians in the Netherlands and Flanders dealing with European integration and related topics in their PhD theses and other research endeavors, providing a platform for historical EU studies.

The conference is organized by Robin de Bruin and Karin van Leeuwen (European Studies, University of Amsterdam).