WHAT IS HAPPENING TO DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE? Barcelona, 21 November 2011 Participants’ short biographies Magali Balent Research Fellow and Project Manager at the Robert Schuman Foundation, Associate Research Fellow at IRIS and Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po, Paris, where she teaches Political Science and History of Political Ideas. She received a Ph.D (with distinction) in International Relations from Graduate Institute of International Studies of Geneva, with a thesis on French Nationalism and International Relations. She also holds a post-graduate diploma in History of International Cultural Relations from the University of Edinburgh and a Master in History of political Ideas from University of Grenoble. In 2008-2010 she was International Affairs Advisor and Responsible for International Studies for UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire), Paris. She has consistent teaching experience both in universities and in secondary schools. She is currently preparing a book on the international vision of the National Front in France and its proposals regarding globalisation and the EU. Goran Buldioski Goran Buldioski is the director of the Open Society Foundations’ Think Tank Fund. He has experienced and contributed to the democratic transition of Central and Eastern Europe. His expertise encompasses strategic planning and capacity building for NGOs and policy research centers; organization and project management in the nonprofit sector, and development of democratic and participatory policy change in Eastern and Central Europe (CEE). Goran holds graduate degrees in public policy from the Central European University - Hungary and in organizational behaviour from the George Washington University – USA. Before joining the Open Society Foundations, he has worked for the Council of Europe, the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation and the National Youth Council of Macedonia. His articles and research papers addressing think tanks, policy relevant research and democratic transition in CEE have appeared in the European Voice, Sharp! Magazine, the Turkish Policy Quarterly, LSE_UNDP Development and Transition Newsletter, the International Journal for Not-for-Profit Law and the Western Balkans Security Observer. He blogs on development of policy research, think tanks and policy making in CEE at: http://goranspolicy.com/. Carmen Claudín Research Director at CIDOB. She was awarded a Master's in Philosophy from the University of the Sorbonne, Paris, where she studied a postgraduate course in Philosophy and History, specialising in Russian and Soviet history. She has written one book, various book chapters and articles in magazines and newspapers related with this field. Her main areas of interest are: Russia and Ukraine's domestic and foreign policies, the transformation of post-Soviet society and reform processes in the post Soviet countries. She is a member of the executive board of the Migration Policy Group. Matthew Goodwin Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. He is also Associate Fellow of Chatham House (Europe Programme). Previously, Matthew was ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG), University of Manchester. His main areas of research include: Extremism and its support; Race, immigration and cohesion; Electoral and political behaviour; Research methods. Matthew is a member of the Political Studies Association (PSA), the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy, the Democracy, Citizens and Elections Research Network (DCERN) and the Council for European Studies (CES). Matthew received his PhD from the University of Bath and has attended the University of Western Ontario (Canada), the University of Salford (UK), Wayne State University (USA), Palackỳ University (Czech Republic), the ECPR Summer School on Parties and Party Systems (the Netherlands) and the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis (UK). WHAT IS HAPPENING TO DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE? Barcelona, 21 November 2011 Participants’ short biographies Taneli Heikka Managing Director of communications consultancy Avaja Open. He is also a journalist, author, social commentator who advocates an open and digitalised Finland. Taneli holds an MA in International Journalism from City University London. He believes in open, interactive communication as a tool to increase organisations’ profitability and quality of service. Currently he is involved in a startup company developing an open citizen collaboration platform for urban planning. Taneli expanded on those themes in his successful pamphlet, Quasi-democracy (WSOY, 2009) and in Uusi Kultakausi (WSOY), or The New Golden Age, published in February 2011. Taneli joined the Tampere daily newspaper Aamulehti in 1997, serving as the paper’s India correspondent and working on the papers’ Sunday supplement at different times, before heading up parent company Alma Media’s Helsinki political news bureau until he left the firm in 2010. He now indulges his love of political communication with Finnish-language media criticism columns in the Green Party’s newspaper, Vihreä Lanka. Sylvie Kauffmann Editorial director at the French newspaper Le Monde. She was the editor-in-chief of the paper until June 2011. She is a graduate of the Faculté de Droit (Law School) de l’université d’Aix-en-Provence and from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Aix-en- Provence). She holds a degree in Spanish from Deusto University in Bilbao, Spain. She also graduated from the Centre de Formation des Journalistes in Paris. She joined Le Monde in 1987 as Moscow correspondent. From 1988 to 1993, she covered Eastern and Central Europe. She then moved to the United States, first as Washington correspondent and then, from 1996 to 2001, as New York Bureau Chief. Back in Paris, she worked as reporter-at-large, and then headed the in-depth reporting section of Le Monde. From 2004 to 2006, she held the deputy editor position of the newspaper. For the next three years, she was reporter-at-large in Asia, based in Singapore, and wrote a weekly column on Asia. Before joining Le Monde, Sylvie Kauffmann worked for Agence France-Presse as a foreign correspondent, in London, New Caledonia (South Pacific), Warsaw and finally in Moscow. Peter Kellner Jjournalist, political commentator and President of the YouGov opinion polling organisation in the United Kingdom. He is known for his appearances on TV, especially at election times. He was born in Lewes, educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Cricklewood (and later Elstree), Minchenden Grammar School, Southgate, north London, and the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne, and has an MA in Economics and Statistics from King's College, Cambridge. Formerly the political analyst of the BBC Newsnight current affairs programme, Kellner was engaged by YouGov's founders, Stephan Shakespeare and Nadhim Zahawi, in December 2001. When YouGov floated for £18 million in April 2005, Kellner owned 6% of the company. Over the last 30 or so years he has been a journalist with The Sunday Times, The Independent, New Statesman and Evening Standard newspapers. He has also been a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and the Institute for Policy Studies, London and has advised several large corporations.[2] He is the Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Kellner is a trustee of Action on Smoking and Health UK. Ivan Krastev Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, and permanent fellow at the IWM Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the advisory board of the ERSTE Foundation, a member of the regional advisory group for Europe of the IMF and a member of the global advisory board of the OSI-New York. He is also associate editor of Europe's World and a member of the editorial board of journal Transit – Europäische Revue. Since 2004 Iavn Krastev has been the executive director of the International Commission on the Balkans WHAT IS HAPPENING TO DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE? Barcelona, 21 November 2011 Participants’ short biographies chaired by the former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Edition of Foreign Policy and was a member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London (2005-2011). His latest books in English are The Anti-American Century, co-editors with Alan McPherson, (CEU Press, 2007) and Shifting Obsessions: Three Essays on the Politics of Anticorruption (CEU Press, 2004). He is a co-author with Steven Holmes of a forthcoming book on Russian politics. Soli Özel BA in Economics from Benningon College (1981) and an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University (1983). Soli Özel is currently a full time Professor at Kadir Has University. He is also a columnist at Habertürk Daily newspaper, and an advisor to TÜSİAD (the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association). He edits TUSIAD’s magazine, Private View. He has guest lectured at Georgetown, Harvard, Tufts and other US universities and held fellowships at Oxford, the EU Institute of Strategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to German Marshall Fund’s web site’s “ON Turkey” series and a regular contributor to World Affairs Journal blog. He is on the board of directors of International Alert and the founding partner of Tribeca, a communications consultancy firm. Werner A. Perger Freelance author and political analyst, he writes mainly for the German weekly