Dr Soetkin Verhaegen

• 2021: ISA Annual Convention, APSA Annual Meeting
• 2020: APSA Annual Meeting
• 2019: APSA Annual Meeting, ISA Annual Convention, ECPR General Conference, ECPR
• Joint Sessions of Workshops, PEIO, iCourts Conference
• 2018: ECPR General Conference
• 2017: APSA Annual Meeting, MPSA Conference
• 2016: ECPR General Conference, Belgian-Dutch Political Science Conference
• 2015: MPSA Conference
• 2014: MPSA Conference, ECPR General Conference, ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops,
• Belgian-Dutch Political Science Conference
• 2013: ECPR General Conference, Belgian-Dutch Political Science Conference, workshop
  at Kingston University
• 2012: Workshop at EUI, Belgian-Dutch Political Science Conference, ECPR Graduate
  Conference
   

• Member of the scientific advisory board for the Belgian citizen panel for the Conference
  on the Future of Europe organized by the Belgian government (2021).
• Convenor of the ECPR Standing Group on Identity (2017-2019).
• Coordinator seminars and workshops related to global and regional governance at
  Stockholm University (2017-2019).
• Member of the Representation and Democratic Resentment (RepResent) research
  consortium, Belgium (2018-currently).
• Coordinator reading and discussion group on EU politics at UC Louvain (2019-
  currently).
• Member of the Participation and Representation (PartiRep) research consortium,
  Belgium (2014-2017).
• Coordinator reading group on political theory at Centre for Political Research at KU
  Leuven (2012-2015).
• Representative for the doctoral students at the Leuven International Doctoral School for
  the Humanities and Social Sciences (2013-2015).
• Reviewer for: H2020 (European Commission), Journal of European Public Policy,
  European Union Politics, Journal of Common Market Studies, European Journal of
  Political Research, European Journal of International Relations, Scandinavian Political
  Studies, Routledge, Comparative European Politics, Youth Studies, The International
  Journal of Press/Politics, Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research,
  The British Journal of Sociology, European Societies, and others.
• Organizer of various panels at academic conferences and a conference on youth and politics.

From 1 June 2022 until 31 May 2023, Soetkin Verhaegen is Senior Research Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen. During this fellowship, she will collaborate with researchers at the centre to develop a survey experiment to study the role of non-state actors regarding the legitimacy of global governance.

Citizens’ Legitimacy Perceptions in the Context of Multilevel Governance

The primary research focus of the project would be the global level in a study that uses survey experiments so as to explain how the way in which Global Governance Institutions (GGIs) are portrayed to people (by the GGI itself, peers, or civil society actors) may affect citizens’ legitimacy beliefs toward those GGIs. It is important to study citizens’ attitudes about GGIs, as competences have not only been moving to different levels and institutions, this is also increasingly contested. Concerns are raised about the risk that moving competences and decision-making to higher governance levels could decrease the legitimacy of policies (and as a result also their effectiveness). These concerns have become especially apparent in three situations: 1) when governance reaches beyond intergovernmental cooperation, 2) when member states’ veto powers are limited, and 3) when decision-making addresses matters of high electoral salience (Føllesdal, 2006; Moravcsik, 2002). In these cases, governance decisions and institutions can draw less strongly upon the perceived legitimacy of its member states among their constituencies, and direct legitimacy is more urgently required. When competences move, concerns about solidarity, identity, fairness, and effectiveness are central. Depending on the perspective of an individual, moving competences to the supra- or subnational level is evaluated as positively or negatively regarding these issues. For these reasons, I study how citizens relate to this (changing) division of competences between a broad range of institutions and levels.

One particular element that warrants further research, is the question how citizens become aware of GGIs and their functioning, and how different sources of communication about GGIs may differently affect citizens’ attitudes about these institutions. Citizens may become aware of GGIs, their functioning and their output through various channels. GGIs themselves invest to varying extents in their public relations towards the broader public, political speeches of member state representatives (e.g. in the context of key meetings of those GGIs) shed more light on the role of GGIs, nonstate actors such as civil society organizations regularly mobilize (often critical voices) regarding GGIs, citizens may discuss GGIs with peers, and the (social) media play an important role in communicating those different messages and views.

• European identity
• Youth
• Socialization
• Political participation
• Elites

• GLOBPOL (2021-2022): Analysing the effects of globalization on attitudes and behaviour towards politics (principal investigator, together with Virginie Van Ingelgom): a comparative survey in seven countries.
• Who can be trusted? Civic education about trust and active and critical citizenship (Vem kan man lita på? Samhällskunskapsundervisning om tillit för ett aktivt och kritiskt medborgarskap) (2020-2022): design of a 2-wave panel survey among Swedish high school students, assessing the impact of a teaching intervention where students inquire a research problem
• EOS RepResent focus groups and election survey (2018-2020): research design, recruitment and moderation of focus groups, contribution to design questionnaire Belgian election survey 2019.
• Legitimacy in Global Governance Elite Survey (2017-2018): research design and management of data gathering of 860 survey interviews with elites in Brazil, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, USA, and in international organizations.
• PartiRep Voter Study 2014: survey question design for module on EU + exit polling for this election study in Belgium.
• Parent-Child Socialization Study (PCSS) 2012-2013: research design, surveying and management of data gathering of panel data (2 survey waves) among over 3000 adolescents and their parents in Flanders
   

• Research grant project GLOBPOL (2021-2022) awarded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS (together with Virginie Van Ingelgom)
• Postdoctoral mandate (3 years, fulltime) awarded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS (2018)
• Grant for a research stay at WWU Münster as part of the Reconnect H2020 project (2019)
• Postdoctoral mandate (1 year, fulltime) awarded by the KU Leuven Research Council (2015)
• Mobility grant for a long research stay abroad, awarded by the Flemish Research Foundation (2015)
• Junior Mobility Grant, awarded by the KU Leuven Research Council (2015)