The Postdoctoral Fellowship for European University Institute PhDs was active from 2011-15 in order to foster teaching and research on European integration. Applicants from three of the EUI programs (Political and Social Sciences, Economics, and History) resided in Ann Arbor as postdoctoral fellows teaching one undergraduate course and pursuing their research.
Daria Popova, EUI Postdoctoral Fellow, Fall 2014
Daria Popova is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute. She earned her Ph.D. in September 2013. While in residency at the University of Michigan, she will teach an undergraduate course “European Social Policy” in the Department of Political Science. The course is a seminar on the emergence and development of European welfare states in their political, social, and economic contexts and on social policy at the EU-level.
Popova's Ph.D. project was a comparative analysis of family policies in four European countries and Russia, and their impact on income distribution and child well-being outcomes, using tax-benefit microsimulation models. Her post-doctoral research at EUI has analyzed the long-term consequences of life-course events for well-being, in particular the effects of parental separation on educational attainment of children and the effects of childlessness on inter-generational transfers. Her broad research interests include comparative social policy, social and economic inequality, poverty and social exclusion, family, and demographic behavior of households. Her methodological interests are: survey methodology, measurement of living standards and quality of life, policy modeling, and microsimulation models.
Jean-Thomas Arrighi de Casanova, EUI Postdoctoral Fellow, 2013-2014
The Center for European Studies and the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia hosted Jean-Thomas Arrighi de Casanova, from the European University Institute in Florence, as the 2013-14 EUI postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Arrighi de Casanova is a researcher for the European Union Democracy Observatory on Citizenship within the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. He earned his Ph.D. in social and political sciences in February 2012, and while in residency at the University of Michigan, he conducted research and taught a course in the Department of Political Science titled, “Migrations and the Transformations of Citizenship in Contemporary Europe.” The course was a critical examination of the transformations of citizenship in contemporary Europe as a result of immigration, looking at broad historical, normative, and political contexts in which they came about.
Arrighi de Casanova's dissertation, titled “Those who Came and Those Who Left: The Territorial Politics of Migration in Scotland and Catalonia,” proceeds from the observation that whilst minority nationalism and migration have been intensely studied in relative isolation from one another, research examining their mutual relationship is still scarce. His research explores how migration politics are being fought over not only across society, but also across territory, in the two cases of protracted nationalist mobilization. Today, his research interests lie at the crossroads of territorial politics, comparative politics, migration and diaspora studies, regionalism, and nationalism.
Thomas Cauvin, EUI Postdoctoral Fellow, Winter 2013
Thomas Cauvin from the European University Institute in Florence served as the 2012-13 postoctoral fellow. Cauvin earned his PhD in history in September 2012, and while in residency at the University of Michigan, Cauvin taught one course at the Department of History titled, “The Uses of the Past in Twentieth Century Europe: from the Great War to the House of European History (1914-2012)," and performed research in his field. The course explored the construction of common pasts in Europe, from the rise of nationalism in the late 19th century to the present European Union’s cultural policies. Upon completion of the EUI fellowship at the Center for European Studies, Dr. Cauvin was hired as an assistant professor of history a the University of Louisiana, effective Fall 2013.
Thomas Cauvin’s credentials and interests in study of Irish history from the perspective of both History and Museum Studies, provide a good background for teaching and research. His doctoral dissertation is an innovative work that explores how two museums, the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin and the Ulster Museum in Belfast, have been implicated in representing the Irish past. In his research he pays particular attention to the role of government in shaping commemoration, the funding of exhibitions, the educational mission assigned to museums and the rise of multiculturalism. His recent publications include, "Quando è in gioco la Public History: musei, storici e riconciliazione politica nella Repubblica d’Irlanda" Memoria e Ricerca, vol. 37, 2011, pp. 53-71; “Représenter une histoire (ré)conciliatrice? Expositions commémoratives en Irlande et Irlande du Nord”, S. Wahnich (ed.), special edition of Culture et Musées, (forthcoming 2012); and “The 1798 National Visitor Centre”, The Public Historian (Forthcoming 2012).
Igor Guardiancich, EUI Postdoctoral Fellow, Winter 2012
Igor Guardiancich was the postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan’s Department of Political Science in Winter 2012. Igor Guardiancich earned his PhD in Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence. His doctoral dissertation and subsequent work are on the political economy of reforms in Central, East, and Southeast Europe as well as post-socialist and pan-European social policy. His most recent publications include articles in West European Politics, East European Politics & Societies, and International Social Security Review. His book, Pension Reforms in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe: From Post-Socialist Transition to the Global Financial Crisis, was published in September 2012 by Routledge.
During his residency at U‐M, Dr. Guardiancich taught one course in the Department of Political Science, POLSCI 497.005 Undergraduate Seminar in Comparative and Foreign Government: The Political Economy of Transition in Europe. The course covered an introduction to the transition from central planning to a market economy and from totalitarianism to democracy as well as further developments in Eastern Europe. It also covered Europeanization and EU enlargement, the financial crisis, and the inception of various socioeconomic policies. Guardiancich gave a lecture in the Conversations on Europe series titled, "Pension Policy in Central and East Europe: Reforms and Reversals," (Jan 19, 2012). He also gave several invited lectures: "The Rise and Fall of Private Pensions in Central and East Europe," and "The Politics of Postcommunist Transition and European Integration. Private Pensions in CEE: Legislation, Implementation, Stability," at University of Denver; and "Political Problems of Economic Development. The Rise and Fall of the Command Economy," at University of Windsor. Guardiancich presented his paper “Poland: Are Flexible Labour Markets Ready for Individualized Pensions?” at the 19th International Conference of Europeanists in Boston (Mar 2012). While in residency at the University of Michigan two of his three papers we submitted for publications in peer-reviewed journals: Ghaliani, Dalila, Igor Guardiancich and David Natali, “Reframing Supplementary Pension Portability in Europe”; Guardiancich, Igor and David Natali, “Pensions and the EU: Beyond the Divide between Economic and Social Europe”; Ferrera, Maurizio, Igor Guardiancich and Matteo Jessoula, “A Road towards Pan-EU Pension Funds?”
