Taru Haapala

Biography

Taru Haapala is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the department of political science and International Relations at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She is an adjunct professor in political thought and conceptual history at the University of Jyväskylä, where she was awarded a Ph.D. in political science in 2012. Haapala is also an associate member of the Finnish Distinguished Professorship (FiDiPro) project entitled “Transformations of Concepts and Institutions in the European Polity (TRACE),” funded by the Academy of Finland. Her research interests include European integration history, history of political ideas, especially the idea of European federalism, and political rhetoric.

At CES, Haapala’s project will examine the European interdependence since the Second World War, providing innovative basic research on European federalism(s). Federalism was a widely supported cause in the immediate aftermath of the WWII in continental Europe, based on the idea of a pluralistic international world order. Even though the idea of federalism does not appear in European politics today, the national traditions of federalism have become interdependent and thus European integration has developed political plurality to a more efficient degree than before.

Previously, Haapala has held visiting fellowships at the European University Institute (EUI) and the Queen Mary Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought, at University of London. She is a working group leader of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action titled “Reappraising Intellectual Debates on Civic Rights and Democracy in Europe (RECAST),” and an executive committee member of a project of the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Network that is titled OpenEUdebate.

This information is accurate for the time period that the visiting scholar is affiliated with CES.