Claudia Wiesner, Dr.
Marie Curie Fellow (2012-2013)
Political Science
Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy
University of Jyväskylä
Postal addresses
1. Jyväskylä University
Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy
P.O. Box 35
(Ylistönmäentie 33)
FI-40014
UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ
2. Philipps-Universität Marburg
Institut für Politikwissenschaft
Wilhelm-Röpke-Str. 6G
35032 Marburg
e-mails: Claudia.wiesner@staff.uni-marburg.de
claudia.wiesner@jyu.fi
Research interests
Claudia Wiesners research concerns two areas. The first and main one is the field of Democratisation, Political Theory and Political Sociology of the EU. Her second field is Public Policy, its evaluation, its reform and its theory, where she has lead two policy evaluation projects in 2007 and 2008.
In her main field of Political Theory, Political Sociology and Democratisation of the EU her current research concentrates on the definition and analysis of key concepts. So limited, fragmentary and unpopular the powers of the EU might still be, today it posits a challenge to central concepts of political language – such as state, government, parliament citizenship, or identity – as well as to their rhetorical legitimisation before the Europeans.
Claudia Wiesners main postdoctoral research – to become a German Habilitation thesis – concentrates on the concept of European Identity and the related theory and methodology. In particular she analyses the role of national EU narratives in France and Germany. The starting point of this work is the finding that there exist different national EU narratives in the different EU member states. To successfully develop an EU identity, they must reach a certain level of accordance. This proves to be difficult, since they can be different or even opposing. The research therefore analyses two debates that were decisive for the developments of two of these EU narratives: the French referendum debate and the German debate on the parliamentary ratification of the Constitutional Treaty, which both took place in 2005.
In cooperation with Prof.Dr. Kari Palonen, Dr. Henrik Stenius and Dr.Tappani Turkka, Claudia Wiesner also works on a research project of the Centre of Excellence: “Parliament, Citizenship, Europe”. The starting point of this project is the thesis that the triad Parliament, Citizenship, Europe indicates a new constellation of concepts. The three are objects of change, objects of debate, and at the same time they set the structures for debate. In particular, Citizenship and Europe are particularly interesting topics of parliamentary debates, since they tend to transcend the government-opposition divide. Hence, these topics incite parliamentarians to take a personal stand, which is alterable in the course of the debate. Therefore they enable to analyse parliamentary activity and debate in an area where the MPs independence is largely at stake, and where parliament tends to get close to its ideal role.