Congratulations to Liv Moes and Lauren Leek from the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences, for receiving their doctorates in October 2025, after unanimous decisions from the jury.
Liv Moes defended her thesis, Global Security, Gender Politics, and the Prevention and Countering of Violent Extremism (P/CVE), on 2 October. Her thesis examined how society changes and is shaped by national and global security concerns, and how, despite increasing gender equality, traditional gender stereotypes continue to influence security decisions.
Read Moes' thesis in Cadmus.
On 7 October, Lauren Leek defended her thesis, The Rise of Central Bank Talk: Essays in Central Bank Communication and Independence. The dissertation argues that central bank communication is not a neutral instrument for information signalling to markets but is used to show responsiveness to political pressures and policy concerns of the day, such as climate change. Her dissertation shows that central bank communication is not a neutral channel for signalling information to markets but a tool for responding to political and policy pressures, including emerging issues such as climate change. Drawing on a global dataset of central bank speeches from 1997 to 2023, analysed with large language models, Lauren shows that communication serves to manage financial instability, signal responsiveness to political concerns, and foster coordination with fiscal authorities.
Read Leek’s thesis in Cadmus.