Tom Theuns is Senior Assistant Professor of Political Theory and European Politics at the Institute of Political Science.

More information about Tom Theuns

Tom Theuns is Senior Assistant Professor of Political Theory and European Politics at the Institute of Political Science in Leiden and Associate Researcher at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po Paris. Previously, he held a research position at Utrecht University and a teaching position at the University of Amsterdam. In 2021 he started a four-year Veni grant from the NWO for his project Protecting Democracy in Europe.

Tom Theuns defended his PhD in Political Science at Sciences Po Paris in 2017. His dissertation, ‘The Legitimacy of EU Democracy Promotion in the Neighbourhood’, developed a normative theory of democracy promotion and examined the legitimacy and desirability of EU democracy promotion in Eastern Europe and North Africa using the tools of political theory. Before Paris, he read for an MPhil in Politics at Balliol College, University of Oxford, and a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences at University College Maastricht. Current research projects investigate the right to vote, especially the democratic legitimacy of disenfranchisement and the appropriate boundaries of the franchise, the tension between democratic ideals and EU policies, procedural accounts of the value and justification of democratic government, and the legitimate scope of EU policies designed to protect and entrench democratic government.

Tom Theuns has published several book chapters and reviews as well as peer-reviewed journal articles in journals such as the American Political Science Review, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, the Journal of European Integration, the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, and Global Justice: Theory, Practice, Rhetoric. As post-doctoral researcher in the ETHOS Horizon2020 project, he also published eight peer-reviewed reports for the European Commission (Research Executive Agency). Besides publishing academic work, Tom Theuns is also a regular commentator on European political affairs for venues including EUobserver, Euractiv, Euronews, and Le Monde Diplomatique.

Mastodon: @TomTheuns@akademienl.social.

PhD supervision

Tom Theuns is available to supervise PhD students and invites PhD candidates to send research proposals in the areas of:

• European politics and governance
• Legal and political theory
• Democratic theory

See more information on PhD positions:

› Institute of Political Science: PhD

Publications