Tom Theuns
Assistant Professor of Political Theory and European Politics
Institute of Political Science in Leiden
Tom Theuns is 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. He defended his PhD in Political Science at Sciences Po in 2017. In the summer of 2017, he was a fellow in the EUROGLOB strategic partnership between the CEE and the European Union Program at Princeton University run by Colin Hay (CEE) and Sophie Meunier (Princeton). Before Paris, he read for an MPhil in Politics at Balliol College, University of Oxford, and a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences (cum laude) at University College Maastricht.
Tom Theuns' doctoral thesis, ‘The Legitimacy of EU Democracy Promotion in the Neighbourhood’, articulated a 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. 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, the Journal of European Integration, the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, the Australian Journal of Politics and History, and the Journal of Comparative Law.
