Research seminar: Europe’s vocation: from Kantian peace to R2P

As part of the School of Politics and International Studies research seminar series, you are warmly invited to a presentation by Prof Kalypso Nicolaïdis (Oxford University). All welcome.

This talk explores the ways in which cosmopolitanism, federalism and constitutionalism have evolved in Europe from core political philosophy concepts to actual political programmes, and how the resulting ‘Europeanism’ engages with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).  I identify three alternative intellectual strategies for their appropriation which in turn both reflect and affect the EU public sphere. First, essentialist strategies appeal to affinities with the essence of these traditions, an essence anterior to or distinct from the particular variant of the ‘state writ large’ which might have tainted each of them in the public and scholarly imagination. Second, to make up for the capture by statist or market-centric lenses of each of these “isms”, hybridization strategies may employ composite notions to deflect criticism such as ‘process cosmopolitanism’ or ‘functional federalism’. Or thirdly, we can turn to pollination strategies which retain the flavor and questions raised by the three isms without necessarily coopting their labels.

The talk will be followed by a public lecture by Prof Nicolaïdis on Brexit, details of which are available here.

Kalypso Nicolaïdis is Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a fellow at St Antony’s College at the European Studies Centre. She teaches theory of international relations, European integration, international political economy, negotiation, game theory and research methods. Prof Nicolaïdis is one of the foremost experts on Brexit and on the EU. She was a “wise man” for the European Council and is currently chair of Oxford University Working Group on Brexit.