Alarums and Excursions

uuk van Middelaars new book, Alarums and Excursions, is a groundbreaking account of the European Union’s crisis politics. In a revealing portrayal of a Europe improvising its way through a politics of events and not rules, Van Middelaar gives us the insider’s view of the EU’s political metamorphosis. Forced into action by a tidal wave of emergencies, Europe has had to reinvent itself. It has had to cast off its legal straitjacket and to confront hard issues of power, territorial borders and public authority. In this event, Van Middelaar will engage in a discussion with Jonathan Zeitlin and Steven Blockmans.

About the speakers

Luuk van Middelaar is a political theorist and historian. He is Professor of Foundations and Practice of the European Union and its Institutions at the Europa Institute of Leiden University, and a political commentator for NRC Handelsblad and De Standaard. His most recent book is De nieuwe politiek van Europa. Since 2018, he is member of the Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs, the Chair of its Commission on European Integration (CEI).

Jonathan Zeitlin is Professor of Public Policy and Governance, and Distinguished Faculty Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences (FMG) at the University of Amsterdam .

Steven Blockmans, is Professor of EU External Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam and a member of the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance (ACELG), and Head of the EU Foreign Policy Unit of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), a Brussels-based think tank, and one of the founding members of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER).

Clara van de Wiel, journalist and editor at NRC Handelsblad, will moderate the event.