Europe is facing a crisis of democracy. Anti-pluralist stances, racism and social inequality are increasing and it seems right to speak of a great regression2 . The crisis is further enhanced by the fact that the establishment seems to struggle in finding answers to these phenomena let alone strategies to tackle them. Furthermore, decision makers seem not able to sufficiently cope with a globalized world, neoliberal rigour and the ‘fear’ of ‘the citizens’ – or at least not able to convey the electorate that they do so. Instead, in order to retain power Europe’s leaders increasingly turn to nationalist coalition partners and switch to anti-migrant rhetoric themselves.
The conference uses Antonio Gramsci’s concept of interregnum as a metaphor for the current state of Europe and the EU and as a start to think about the future of Europe. Hence the aim of the conference is: to take the current state of Europe as a start to elaborate on what can be ‘the new’ for Europe. The conference aims at thinking beyond the interreg-num, towards a future political, social, legal and economic architecture for Europe.
Scholars have recently proposed different economic, political and legal reforms regarding the European Union. We invite participants to address recent discussions, but also to think beyond the EU, discussing inner European and global power relations, from a post-colonial and post-socialist perspective. Furthermore, we invite participants to engage with the research topics listed below from a theoretical and/or empirical standpoint.

Find more information on the conference in the Call for Abstracts.