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In this roundtable event, jointly organised by the UCL SSEES Study of Central Europe seminar series and the British Czech and Slovak Association (BCSA), leading academic specialists assess the election results and consider their likely implications for Slovakia’s democracy, foreign policy and position in Europe.

This event will take place in person and will also be livestreamed online.

Panel:

Prof Tim Haughton (University of Birmingham)

Tim Haughton is Professor of Comparative and European Politics at the University of Birmingham. Tim’s research interests encompass electoral and party politics, electoral campaigning, and the domestic politics of several countries in Central and Eastern Europe. He is the co-author with Kevin Deegan-Krause of The New Party Challenge: Changing Cycles of Party Birth and Death in Central Europe and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2020). He has a particular interest in the politics of Slovakia and has written on every parliamentary election since 2002. Tim has good links with the policymaking community having briefed inter alia five British ambassadors to Slovakia before they took up their posts in Bratislava.

Dr Karen Henderson (University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava)

Karen Henderson first travelled to Slovakia in the 1980s and was a British Council scholar in Bratislava and Prague in 1987-88. She now lectures in Politics and European Studies at the Faculty of Social Science of the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava. She was previously Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Leicester, and moved to Bratislava in 2013, working initially at Comenius University. She has written widely on both the domestic politics of the Slovak Republic and EU eastern enlargement, focusing on Euroscepticism and the influence of domestic politics on EU decision making and is the author of Slovakia: The Escape from Invisibility (Routledge, 2002). She also a frequent commentator on UK politics for the Slovak media.

Dr Michal Ovádek (UCL Department of Political Science)

Michal Ovádek is Assistant Professor in European Institutions, Politics and Policy at »Ê¼Ò»ªÈË Department of Political Science. Prior to joining UCL, he was postdoctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden having previously worked between 2019 and 2021a political advisor in the European Parliament. He obtained his PhD at KU Leuven in Belgium and his research is focused on the interaction of law and politics in the European Union, both in the judicial and the legislative arena. He maintains an interest in judicial politics more generally and in theÌýregional and domestic politics of Central and Eastern Europe.

Adriana Svitkova

Adriana Svítková is a double alumna of the London School of Economics specializing in the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. She is currently working as a social media researcher focusing on misinformation and disinformation relating to the 2023 Slovak elections. Fluent in several regional languages, Adriana specializes in researching foreign influence as well as the attitudes of immigrants in Central and Eastern Europe. She received the LSE Department of Government prize for her dissertation calledÌýThe 'Othering' of 'Eastern' Europe in Brexit Britain: Surveying and Examining Immigrant Attitudes. Adriana had previously worked in the European Commission and led the largest academic conference on Czech Republic and Slovakia outside the seÌý³¦´Ç³Ü²Ô³Ù°ù¾±±ð²õÌý-Ìýthe LSESU Central European Conference.

Chair:

Dr Sean Hanley (UCL SSEES)