Fellow 2023-2024
Adrià Alcoverro investigates the erosion of democratic values in the context of the rise of the extreme right in the European political landscape. As an international scholar in political sciences, he conducted research in Spain, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Greece. His research interests include the political economy of late capitalism in relation to democracy and to knowledge production in higher education institutions in the context of global university reforms of the last decades. Representing the NGO ANTIGONE, he has recently been involved in the EU-funded research project NIEM (National Integration Evaluation Mechanism). NIEM assesses integration policies in fourteen European countries and raises the issue of advocacy for refugees' political rights. At the Leuphana Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society, Adrià Alcoverro develops the option of a democratic anti-essentialist historical consciousness, drawing on Sweden and Greece as case studies.
Abstract
For a Democratic Historic Consciousness. An Alternative to Counter the Rise of the Extreme Right’s Essentialism in Present Day Society
The rise of the extreme right in the West represents a threat to the fundamentals of democracy. This occurs after decades of social deterioration. It has been accompanied by a de-politicizing technocratic governance legitimized by an ahistorical narrative that elevates the individual above the common in an imagined world free of conflicts and constraints. This, in turn, dilutes the notion of a historic consciousness unavoidably linked to the common. Around this void, the extreme right has articulated an essentialist narrative constructed on a glorified past to legitimize an antidemocratic agenda. This project aims on the one hand, to comprehend the dynamics of this historic moment and, on the other, to draw some alternatives to directly dispute this notion of identity by re-discussing and rebuilding a historic-democratic identity based on the principles of common democracy.
Education
2018 PhD Political Science, Södertörn University Stockholm
2011 MA Baltic Sea Region Studies, University of Turku and Humboldt University Berlin
2008 BA Political Science, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Most Recent Academic Position
Researcher at NIEM (National Integration Evaluation Mechanism. Measuring and Improving Integration of Beneficiaries of International Protection)
Most Recent Publications
“The University and the Demand for Knowledge-based Growth.” Stockholm: Södertorn University Publications, 2020.
With Gazi, Theodora. “Integrating Beneficiaries of International Protection in Greece: Overview of Legal Framework, Guarantees and Barriers.” “The International Journal of Community and Diversity” 22, no. 2 (2022): 15–25.
"El 'retorno' del estado-nación y la extrema derecha". “La Maleta de Portbou” (2022): 54.