Joris Melman successfully defended his PhD thesis on the legitimation of the euro on 5 May.
Despite rising Euroscepticism and decreasing trust in EU institutions, the euro has remained one of the most widely supported elements of the EU. Why is the euro so widely supported among EU citizens? And what does this support mean for the euro’s legitimacy? These are among the questions Joris Melman asks in his thesis ‘Deeply contested yet taken for granted - The legitimation of the euro between the political and the everyday’.
Melman has conducted focus group research in Italy, France and the Netherlands and finds that citizens see the euro as an everyday object more than as a political entity.
Even if people do have certain political associations with it, these are generally diffuse. As such, it is mostly taken for granted as an accepted part of daily life.
Melman with his adjudication committee, Jonathan White (left), Virginie Van Ingelgom and Jonathan William Kuyper. (Photo: Silva Hoffmann/ ARENA)
Melman’s public defence took place on 5 May 2023 at the University of Oslo. His adjudication committee was Professor Jonathan White, Professor Jonathan White, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Professor Virginie Van Ingelgom, Université catholique de Louvain and Associate Professor Jonathan William Kuyper, University of Oslo.
Melman was one of 15 PhD fellows who took part of the EU funded project The Post-Crisis Legitimacy of the European Union (PLATO), coordinated by ARENA. His supervisors were Christopher Lord, John Erik Fossum and Dirk De Bièvre.
Find the scientific abstract and press release (in Norwegian) here.
Congratulations, Dr. Melman!
