Ludvig NormanSenior lecturer, Associate professor
About me
Ludvig Norman is Associate Professor (Docent) of Political Science at Stockholm University and Senior Fellow at the UC Berkeley Institute of European Studies where he was also Visiting Scholar 2016-2017 . He earned his PhD at Uppsala University, held a post-doc position at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
His research interests include European politics, democratic responses to populism and extremism, the institutions of the European Union and EU democracy. Norman also has a keen interest in social science methodology, and in particular qualitative and mixed-methods approaches to social scientific research.
Recent book projects include
Weimar's Long Shadow (Cambridge University Press, 2024) is an edited volume (co-edited with Richard Ned Lebow) that investigates how lessons drawn from the fall of the Weimar Republic have shaped post-war political thought. Throughout its chapters, including studies from Germany and Europe as well as the United States it engages with how Weimar has served as reference point for thinking about democracy and its fragilities.
Dilemmas of European Democracy: New Perspectives on Democratic Politics in the European Union (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) is and edited volume (co-edited with Niklas Bremberg) and explores how dilemmas associated with key democratic concepts can be understood in relation to the European Union.
Robustness and Fragility of Political Orders (Cambridge University Press 2022) (co-edited with Richard Ned Lebow) brings together a range of contributions on the political and institutional consequences of elite assessements of the relative fragility and robustness of their political orders.
The Mechanisms of Institutional Conflict in the European Union (Routledge, 2017) is a research monograph that focuses on the processes that lead to conflicts over decision-making competencies between different institutions of the European Union. The studies in this book applies an interpretive form of process tracing and develops two key mechanisms explaining how institutional conflicts appear and how they are resolved.
Norman's articles have appeared in Democratization, Political Studies, European Journal of Social Theory, Journal of Common Market Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of European Public Policy, Cooperation and Conflict, Constellations, Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, APSAs QMMR Newsletter, Review of International Studies
From 2024 Norman is the principal investigator for the project Shaping the Online Public Sphere: When and Why do Democracies Regulate Social Media Platforms and with what Consequences? funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation. 2020-2023 Norman was the principal investigator in a project funded by the Swedish Research Council called Dilemmas of Democratic Self Defense in European Public Broadcasting.
He currently heads the MA programs in Political Science is currently convener of both the BA and MA course in qualitative research methods. Norman also teaches a PhD seminar on case studies and process tracing a course on populism and democratic politics and serves as adviser at the PhD level.
Research
Publications
Books
2024 Weimar's Long Shadow co-edited with Richard Ned Lebow (Cambridge University Press) scheduled publication June 2024.
2023 Dilemmas of European Democracy: New Perspectives on Democratic Politics in the European Union, co-edited with Niklas Bremberg (Edinburgh University Press).
2022 Robustness and Fragility of Political Orders: Leader Assessments, responses, and Consequences, co-edited with Richard Ned Lebow (Cambridge University Press)
2016 The Mechanisms of Institutional Conflict in the European Union (Routledge).
Articles
2024 'Democratic Self-Defense and Public Sphere Institutions (with Ludvig Beckman) Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12737
2023 ‘Public Broadcasting and Democracy’s Defense: Responses to Far-Right parties in Germany and Sweden’ (w. Josef Hien) Democratization, (published online). https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2217083
2022 Is the Governance of Europe's Transnational Party System Contributing to EU Democracy? Journal of Common Market Studies (with Wouter Wolfs) 60(2): 463-479 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13250
2021 Rethinking Causal Explanation in Interpretive International Studies, European Journal of International Relations, 27(3): 936-959. https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661211006454
2021 To democratize or to protect? How the response to anti-system parties reshapes the EU’s transnational party system, Journal of Common Market Studies, 59(3): 721-737. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13128
2018 Three Models of Democratic Self-Defence: Militant Democracy and its Alternatives Political Studies, 66(2): 442-458 (w. Anthoula Malkopoulou).
2018 Theorizing the Social Foundations of Exceptional Security Politics: Rights, Emotions and Community, Cooperation and Conflict, 53(1): 84-100.
2017 Defending the European Polity: Visions of Politics in Response to the Radical Right, European Journal of Social Theory, 20(4): 531-549.
2017 Path dependency and convergence of three worlds of welfare policy during the Great Recession: UK, Germany and Sweden, Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 33(1): 1-17 (w. Kiess, J. Temple, L. and Uba, K.).
2016 Conceptualizing European security cooperation: Competing international political orders and domestic factors, European Journal of International Relations, 22(4): 749-772 (w. Anna Michalski).
2015 When Norms and Rules Collide: The Social Production of Institutional Conflict in the European Union’ Journal of European Public Policy, 22(5): 630-649.
2011 Political Utilization of Scholarly Ideas: The “Clash of Civilizations” vs. “Soft Power” in US Foreign Policy, Review of International Studies, 37 (1), pp. 417-436. (w. Johan Eriksson).
Chapters in books
2024 ‘Swedish Social Democracy and Weimar: Engineering the Democratic Population with the Myrdals’ in Lebow, R. N. and Norman, L. (eds.) Weimar’s Long Shadow (Cambridge University Press).
2024 'Weimar and Modernity' (w. Richard Ned Lebow) in Lebow, R. N. and Norman, L. (eds.) Weimar’s Long Shadow (Cambridge University Press).
2022 'Democracy's Fragility and the European Political Order; Functionalism, Militant Democracy and Crisis' in Lebow, R. N. and Norman, L. (eds.) Robustness and Fragility of Political Orders: Leader Assessments, responses, and Consequences (Cambridge University Press).
2019 ‘European Governance of Development and Security’ chapter in Bevir, Mark and Phillips, Ryan (eds.) Decentering European Governance, Routledge.
2019 (reprint) ‘Three Models of Democratic Self-Defence: Militant Democracy and its Alternatives’ (w. Anthoula Malkopoulou) in Kirchner, A. and Malkopoulou, A. (eds.) Militant Democracy and Its Critics: Populism, Parties, Extremism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (Originally published in Political Studies, 66(2): 442-458.
2015 ‘Austerity measures across Europe’ in Foster, L., Brunton, A. Deeming, C. and Haux, D. (eds.) In Defence of Welfare II, Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 55-58. (w. Katrin Uba and Luke A. Temple).
Non-peer reviewed
2022 The Fragility of Political Orders, Fifteeneightyfour blog, Cambridge University Press. http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2022/11/the-fragility-of-political-orders/
2021 6+1 Questions about ‘Rethinking Causal Explanation in Interpretive International Studies, Duck of Minerva, August 26, 2021 https://www.duckofminerva.com/2021/08/61-questions-about-rethinking-causal-explanation-in-interpretive-international-studies.html
2019 ‘EU, populismen och Europavalet’ (EU, Populism and the European Elections) Världspolitikens dagsfrågor, Utrikespolitiska Institutet (Swedish Institute of International Affairs).
2015 Interpretive Process Tracing and Causal Explanations, Newsletter of the APSA Organized Section for Qualitative and Multi-Methods Research, 13(2): 4-9).
2014 ‘Integrated Report on Policy Responses to Crisis’ LIVEWHAT-project, (grant agreement n° 613237).
