The EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences invites interested researchers and prospective applicants to learn more about the PhD programme at the SPS Department during this year's Virtual Open Days.
Throughout the entire week, several seminars and working groups will go public in order for participants to get a glimpse of the vibrant daily life at the SPS.
Friday, 1 December, will be the highlight of the Open Days with two major sessions: 'Meet the SPS faculty: A Q&A session' and 'Meet the SPS researchers: A Q&A session'.
We kindly invite all those who are interested in attending one or more events of SPS Open Days to register at the bottom of this page. Upon registration, you will receive a zoom link that will allow you to join any of the events. You just need to connect at the date and time indicated.
Please find below the Programme of the Open Days.
Learn more about our Doctoral Programme in Political and Social Sciences, by visiting our website.
For more information, please contact sps.dept@eui.eu.
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Monday 27 November
Introduction to Qualitative Methods
Exploring the cutting-edge for students of qualitative research: Research Transparency
09:00 – 10:00 (CET time)
Lecture by EUI Professor Jeffrey T. Checkel
This is a course about how to evaluate and conduct rigorous, epistemologically plural qualitative research. It will both introduce you to key concepts and methods – cause and case studies, positionality and ethnography, say – and show how they work in practice. Methods can flow from various philosophical starting points; process tracing and ethnography – for example – are distinct techniques for gathering and evaluating data that draw upon different epistemologies. The chosen epistemology, in turn, attunes the scholar to certain research questions and not others; to seeing theory's role in different ways; to differing understandings of cause; and to contrasting appreciations of ethics. Why do proponents of case studies champion their causal power while saying little about the ethics in play, while – for the ethnographer – ethics stand front and centre, but causality – if even discussed – is bounded, contextualised and local?
Field Seminar in International Relations
Theorising in International Political Theory (IPT): Understanding violence
15:00 – 17:00 (CET time)
Presentation by EUI Professor Stefano Guzzini
International Political Theory (IPT) has a particularly strong tradition in the UK. It is not primarily informed by developing our social theories via a discussion / critique of its concepts and assumptions, as the discussion in some of the former seminars, but by political theory. Political theory includes both the understanding of fundamental or constitutive phenomena of global politics (e.g. sovereignty), often informed by normative theory with its link to moral philosophy (covered in the previous session) or intellectual history (covered in this session). As an illustration, Frazer and Hutchings' analysis of political violence showcases how such design can make (theoretical) arguments in favour of some approaches rather than others.
Tuesday 28 November
Field Seminar in Sociology
Social change and continuity II: The life course
15:00 – 17:00 (CET time)
Lecture by EUI Professors Juho Härkönen, Arnout van de Rijt, and Herman van de Werfhorst
This course addresses key questions, theoretical approaches and readings in sociology as a core social science discipline. Sociology is a very disparate discipline but this course approaches it by focusing on key theoretical approaches and questions that cut through much of good sociological research. The focus of the course is on asking theoretical questions and thinking sociologically. The course comes in two parts: a ten week seminar series and an exam of a (longish) reading list of some key texts in sociology. The seminar and the readings are structured under five themes: core principles and sociological theory building, Social structure and agency, Social integration and social cohesion, Differentiation and inequality, and Social change and continuity. By the end of the course, the participants are expected to have developed an understanding of sociological thinking and some key sociological fields and central works therein.
Political Behaviour Colloquium
Inheritance & Inequality in a Primitive Growth Economy
17:30 – 18:45 (CET time)
Presentation by Felix Schaff (Max Weber Fellow)
The idea of the colloquium is to offer researchers and fellows interested in political behaviour a platform to discuss their work. We conceive political behaviour as broadly as you can imagine. So, our interests cover a very extensive field in political science that ranges from the foundations of attitudes towards leaders, governments, or democracy; to the process of voting decisions and the consequences of political participation. Empirically driven comparative analyses and case studies are welcomed, and they can focus on the global, European, national or regional level. We particularly favour innovation in research design, the use of mixed methods, causal inference and theory-development approaches.
Wednesday 29 November
Professionalisation and Disciplinary Ethics Seminar Series
Session theme: Conferences
10:00 – 13:00 (CET time)
Presentation by EUI Professors Filip Kostelka, Miriam Golden, and Herman van de Werfhorst
The professionalisation seminar provides PhD researchers the opportunity to learn about various aspects of the life and career of a scholar. Each session first offers about an hour of guidance by an instructor and then one to two hours for open discussion and questions. The seminar meets on one Wednesday of each month starting in October for no more than three hours.
Thursday 30 November
Seminar: Crisis, what crisis? Comparative research into hard policy problems
Session theme: Climate change
09:00 – 11:00 (CET time)
Lecture by Professor Anton Hemerijck and Nina Lopez-Uroz (SPS Researcher, EUI)
This seminar offers a comprehensive introduction into comparative crisis research in rich liberal democracies. The aim is to introduce researchers to the state of the art in crisis research. When and how does a hard policy problem become a crisis? Is the crisis politics determined by features of a crisis, notably how common or country-specific, exogenous or endogenous to the reference system a crisis appears to be?
Friday 1 December
Meet the SPS faculty: A Q&A session
14:30 – 15.30 (CET time)
This session is hosted and organised by the SPS Faculty. It will start with an introduction by the Head of Department, Professor Elias Dinas. The Director of Graduate Studies, Professor Arnout van de Rijt, will be present to address possible questions about the programme.
Meet the SPS researchers: A Q&A session
15:30 – 16:30 (CET time)
This session is hosted and organised by the SPS Researcher Representatives. The Researcher Representatives will introduce themselves and give a brief overview of their experiences at the EUI and in Florence. The rest of the session will be an open floor for participants to ask any questions they have about the PhD programme, working at the EUI and living in Florence.
Get to know the EUI Library Services: A Q&A session
16:30 – 17:00 (CET time)
This session is hosted by Thomas Bourke, Information Specialist at the EUI Library. It will start with a short overview of EU Library collections and services for Researchers in the SPS Department; followed by an open Q&A for participants to ask questions about the EUI library. Topics include: Data for Social Science Research; Books and eBooks; The Journals Collection; premier International News Resources; the Reference Collection. All are very welcome.