New Research in Illiberalism:
Ideas and Forces Fueling Illiberalsim
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EDT)
Online event
This event is on the record and open to the public.
New Research in Illiberalism is a series hosted by the Illiberalism Studies Program featuring authors of chapters published in the Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism (2021) eds. András Sajó, Renáta Uitz, Stephen Holmes. The speakers will present their research based on their chapter in the handbook with a group discussion afterwards.

This seminar discusses the historical and contemporary counterparts of illiberalism: the ancient roots of populism in Greece and Rome and the politicization of immigration. What is the distinction between populism and "popularism" and what were ancient Greek and Roman perspectives on the place and nature of "the people"? What are the paradoxes and tensions of liberal democracy and migration politics and what concerns should we have about the impact of illiberalism today on migrant rights and democracy itself?
Speakers
Claudia Moatti specializes in the study of Roman History, Roman Administration, and Human Mobility. She has a joint appointment as Adjunct Professor of Classics and Law at USC and Professor in the Department of History at the Université of Paris 8. In 2011, she received a courtesy appointment at USC Gould School of Law.

She is currently working on four books: Respublica Politique et cosmopolitique I, L’Empire romain en mouvement. Politique et cosmopolitique II, Libertas as a legal category in the Roman World, and an English translation of La Raison de Rome. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Social and Education History based in Barcelona, the Association Internationale d’Epigraphie Grecque et Latine, the British Epigraphy Society, and a member of the Sterring Committe of the Center of Law, History and Culture. Moatti also serves as the Director of the Mediterranean Center in the University of Paris 8.
Leila Hadj Abdou is Part-Time Assistant Professor at the Migration Policy Centre at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute. She is in charge of coordinating the EUI’s contribution to the H2020 project “Exploring the Integration of Post-2014 Migrants in Small and Medium-Sized Towns and Rural Areas from a Whole of Community Perspective (WHOLECOMM)”.

Previous to this appointment she has already worked for several years at the MPC as a Research Fellow with a focus on migration governance from a global and regional perspective. She currently also holds the position of Lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna where she conducts research and lectures in the field of migration, EU, and Austrian politics. Previously she also held academic positions at the Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Sheffield. In addition to her academic positions, she held project manager positions for an NGO in 2016 working with unaccompanied minor asylum seekers, and in an educational centre in 2017 working with adult refugees and refugee care workers. She is editorial board member of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS), and Editorial College Member of the journal Migration Politics. She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute.
Moderator
Marlene Laruelle, Ph.D., is Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies; Director of the Central Asia Program; Director of the Illiberalism Studies Program; Co-Director of PONARS Eurasia; and Research Professor of International Affairs at The George Washington University. She works on political, social, and cultural changes in the post-Soviet space. Marlene's research explores the transformations of nationalist and conservative ideologies in Russia, nationhood construction in Central Asia, as well as the development of Russia's Arctic regions.
Illiberalism Studies Program
Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES)
Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
1957 E Street, NW | Suite 412 | Washington, DC | 20052