About this Event
Date: Thursday, September 24
Time: Reception: 4:00pm | Talk: 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Location: Halpern Centre Room 126, SFU Burnaby campus
About the Event:
Vivien Schmidt’s new book, The Power of Ideas and Discourse in Political Analysis: A Discursive Institutionalist Perspective (Oxford 2026) provides a sweeping appraisal of how ideas and discourse are used by policymakers and everyday citizens to understand the world, communicate with one another, and mobilize for collective action. It illustrates using examples of scholarly work on capitalism and democracy, international diplomacy and human rights, environmental, economic, and social policy, conservativism, neoliberalism, feminism, socialism, and populism. In so doing, the book also provides a discursive institutionalist perspective on the (constructivist) nature of meaning, the dynamics of change, the exercise of power, and the foundations of legitimacy.
At a time of major political upheaval, with populism and authoritarianism on the rise, understanding agents’ ideas and discourse is even more essential today than ever.
About the Guest Speaker:
Vivien A. Schmidt is Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Professor Emerita of International Relations and Political Science, and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Europe at Boston University. She is Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute and Honorary Professor at LUISS University. Recent books include The Power of Ideas and Discourse in Political Analysis: A Discursive Institutionalist Perspective (Oxford 2026) and the award-winning Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone (Oxford 2020).
Schmidt is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor, and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the European Union Studies Association, an Honorary Doctorate from the Free University of Brussels, and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.
Event venue & nearby stays
Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive West, Burnaby, Canada
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