Seminar with Professor Rob van Gestel. Rob van Gestel is professor of theory and methods of regulation at Tilburg University and professor of legal research methods at the KU Leuven. In his research he is focused on methodology of both law and legal research with a focus on methods of legislation/regulation, methods of judicial law-making and methods of scholarly legal research.
The project of European Integration is under attack. Whoever thought that the UK leaving the EU would bring the scepticism about “an ever closer union” to a stop, must realize by now that this assumption was naïve. Not only has there been increasing criticism against certain EU policies (e.g. migration/asylum) from far-right political parties in Germany (AfD), France (Front National), PIS, (Poland), Fidesz (Hungary), PVV (Netherlands) etc., who basically oppose the ongoing loss of sovereignty by EU Member States. There is also increasing euro scepticism from the side of the far-left by political parties that see the EU as a mainly “neoliberal” project that promotes a form of deregulated free-market capitalism and technocratic governance that is a danger to democracy. On top of all this comes the hostility towards the EU from the side of the Trump administration in the U.S. It is highly likely that these changes in the political landscape are also going to affect European legal scholarship, because EU lawyers are viewed by the multitude of politicians as largely in favour of the European integration project and therefore not necessarily very objective. If one adds to this that the methodological accountability of most EU legal scholarship is relatively weak compared to that of political scientists, sociologists, economist, and so on, it may not come as a surprise that EU legal scholarship is an easy target for political backlash, especially in a post-truth society. This raises questions, such as: how can EU legal scholars defend themselves against accusations of scholarly activism and lack of methodological accountability? Should they all become empirical legal scholars, who merely study the effects of EU law, or is there still room for doctrinal legal EU legal scholarship and, if so, what should that legal scholarship look like?
---
The seminar will be held at Stockholm University, Department of Law, Faculty room, Universitetsvägen 10, building C, 8th floor.
Please register by February 13th.
Coffee and sandwiches will be served to registered participants.
Warm welcome!
Antonina Bakardjieva Engelbrekt and Björn Lundqvist