Projects

The themes for the 2018-20 cycle of Jean Monnet Projects are:

The EU and the Global Economy (Professor Mark Copelovitch)

Neighborhood and Social Cohesion Policy (Faculty Associate Elizabeth Covington)

Blood, Meat and Upscaling Tissue Engineering: Promises, Anticipated Market and Performativity in the Biomedical and Agri-food Sectors (Professor Linda Hogle)

This project will research issues related to the scale-up of human cell manufacturing for therapeutics. With collaborators at four UK universities, Professor Hogles will focus on the actual practices of regenerative medicine researchers and companies within EU regulatory and bioethics environments, including recently-changed EU data protection law. A working group of researchers and policymakers will convene to discuss developments and future directions.

EU-US City-to-City Pairings on Sustainable Urban Development (Associate Professor Sabine Moedersheim)

Professor Modersheim will lead the project involving the sister cities of Madison, Wisconsin and “Green City” Freiburg, Germany. Working with the Madison-Freiburg Sister City Committee and its counterpart in Freiburg, as well as the Green City Freiburg office, the project will explore the impact of citizens’ involvement from the anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s to the energy transition (Energiewende), pioneering renewable energy, low emission neighborhoods, energy and housing coops, multimobility, environmental research and education, and sustainable entrepreneurship.

Associate Professor Sabine Moedersheim has collaborated with the UniverCity Alliance Urban Futures Survey (University of Wisconsin-Madison), which unites a group of community practitioners and campus scholars to study social and policy engagement in urban areas—locally and globally. Moedersheim led the City of Madison-Freiburg Sister City group on this project, which demonstrated the nature of involvement in urban communities and particular nodes of interest going forward.

A Politicized Union: The End of the “Permissive Consensus” and the Future of European Integration (Professor Nils Ringe)

A first study associated with this project, in collaboration with with Frank Häge (University of Limerick, Ireland), examines the selection process for so-called shadow rapporteurs in the European Parliament (EP), who work alongside the lead rapporteur in charge of drafting the official committee report on a piece of proposed legislation. It asks when and how parties choose to assign shadows who both monitor and collaborate rapporteurs, paying particular attention to relational considerations: how do the attributes of the member selected as rapporteur affect who is subsequently selected as shadow? Professor Ringe and Professor Häge presented their project “Shadow Rapporteur Assignment in the EP: Relational and Strategic Considerations” at the 2019 Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Political Science Association (APSA).
A second study, with Steven L. Wilson (University of Nevada-Reno) centers on career paths of members of the EP, offering important insights into the institutionalization of EU politics since political careers in institutional arenas tend to be marked by continuity rather than change. The research focuses, in particular, on the selection of MEPs into leadership positions in both party and committee. It contributes to our understanding of legislative decision-making dynamics, formal and informal hierarchies, and career trajectories, in the EP and beyond.
April 2019, Europe in Translation: Multilingualism in Theory and Practice
April 2019, Brexit: Assessing the Future of the UK and Europe
Academic Year 2018-2019, Renewal Out of Crisis: The EU and Multi-Level Governance
Academic Year 2019-2020, Comparative Politics Colloquium
Global Impact of COVID-19 and the German Response with Professor Nils Ringe

Click here for an archive of the 2015-17 Jean Monnet Projects