This seminar will explore the far-reaching consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine for South East Europe. Key topics will include the region’s heightened security concerns, disruptions in energy supplies, and the broader geopolitical shifts resulting from the conflict. We will also discuss how South East European countries are responding to these challenges, both within the frameworks of the EU and NATO, and examine the war's impact on regional stability, political dynamics, and relations with Russia.

A few years of populist rule fundamentally changes the politics of a country. The question is, does it change irrevocably? Not necessarily. In countries where populists have been successfully removed from power, as in Poland, there is theoretically a window of opportunity for a return to liberal democracy. In practice, however, this is extremely difficult, as the current government of Donald Tusk is discovering. The challenge is all the greater as the war in Ukraine and the crisis of democracy in Western countries affect the entire region.

This talk will explore the intersection of climate politics and public support for the green transition in Europe, analyzing the political strategies and public attitudes that shape the continent's response to climate change. It will examine how European governments and institutions are addressing the challenges of decarbonisation, renewable energy adoption, and sustainability, while navigating varying levels of public support and opposition.

Leadership in the history of Islam has been fundamentally shaped by two distinct yet overlapping models of religious authority: charismatic and exemplary. Prophet Muhammad was the original charismatic leader of the Muslim community—having assumed the dual mantle as messenger of God’s final revelation and political leader of the first Muslim community. From a Sunni perspective, charisma ended with his death. Muhammad’s legacy continued with the prophetic example of exemplary ethical and religious conduct—what became known as the Sunnah.

To (mis)quote Jawaharlal Nehru, at the stroke of the midnight hour on August 14/15, 1947, the Indian subcontinent was not just awakening to life and freedom; it was also being ravaged by ultranationalist and fascistic paramilitary movements who viewed freedom as the freedom to dominate as an ethnonational majority. In this paper, I trace the emergence of these movements and their ideologues from the 1920s through to the immediate aftermath of decolonization.

The European Union is facing multiple internal and external challenges, who will lead the EU over the next five years will have profound implications for the nature and the future of the European project. Over the last two decades Central and Eastern Europeans member states have been underrepresented in EU top jobs and have had limited impact on EU policy-making. As the EU is starting a new institutional cycle, the seminar will explore the allocation of top jobs in the EU and their implications for leadership and the balance of power in the EU.

The concept of “carbon neutrality” is becoming a central focus in the global climate change conversation. How this idea is received by governments and the public will significantly influence the political debates around climate policies. In this study, we map and analyze how carbon neutrality has emerged in public discussions across Europe and worldwide. By using Natural Language Processing, we examined nearly 3.4 million carefully selected online news articles from 2018 to 2021, covering 138 countries that together represent 94% of the global population.

This paper will focus on the strangely pervasive view – especially in western occult circles and in South Asia– that Jesus travelled to India and Tibet during his “lost years” between his Bar Mitzvah and his preaching in Palestine. While there, it was argued, he incorporated the fundamentals of Hinduism and Buddhism into his teachings, especially the Sermon on the Mount. The implication of this argument was that Western civilisation was unable to forge an ethics of compassion and a doctrine of non-violence without the help of “Eastern Wisdom.”