The European Union in Economic, Political, and Social Crisis

This presentation will offer a broad overview of the state of the European Union in the face of crisis. It will review current events and discuss possible implications of major developments in the economic, social, political, and security realms, with a particular focus on the Euro crisis, challenges associated with the inflow of refugees and migrants, recent election results in EU member states, and the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks.

Nils Ringe is Associate Professor of Political Science, Jean Monnet Chair, and Director of the Center for European Studies, the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, and the European Studies Alliance. His research and teaching interests are European Union politics (in particular the institutions of the EU), legislatures, political parties, social networks, and elections. His new book (with Jennifer N. Victor, George Mason University) is titled "Bridging the Information Gap: Legislative Member Organizations as Social Networks in the United States and the European Union" (University of Michigan Press; click here for details). It examines voluntary, issue-based, cross-partisan groups of legislators (such as caucuses in the U.S. Congress and intergroups in the European Parliament) in a comparative perspective. His previous book, "Who Decides, and How? Preferences, Uncertainty, and Policy Choice in the European Parliament," was published in 2010 by Oxford University Press. Ringe is currently working on a series of papers on social networks in legislative politics.