From two-party rule to polarisation: Ten years of Spanish politics

On 11 November 2025, the European Studies Centre welcomed Sandra León, Ramón Areces Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, to present her new work on the transformation of Spain's party system since 2015. Chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of the European Studies, the seminar offered a careful, evidence-based account of Spain's transition from a relatively stable two-party equilibrium to a more fragmented and polarised multiparty system. Drawing on longitudinal public opinion data, electoral maps and original experiments, León argued that this transformation is structurally durable and carries important implications for social cooperation, democratic accountability and crisis management.

León began by locating this transformation within a sequence of overlapping crises. The global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath brought deep economic hardship and austerity politics, culminating in the political upheaval of 2015. New parties such as Podemos and Ciudadanos entered the political arena, voter loyalties fragmented, and Spain's long-standing two-party dynamic gave way to a more competitive multiparty landscape. Electoral and parliamentary fragmentation increased sharply after 2015, and by the end of the decade Spain's party system had come to resemble those of many other European democracies rather than the "Spanish exception" of earlier decades. Using electoral data and fragmentation indices, León traced this evolution while showing how institutional politics adapted through more frequent elections, coalition governments and minority administrations.

The legislative politics of climate change mitigation: Evidence from the European Parliament

On 4 November 2025, the European Studies Centre hosted Mihail Chiru, Associate Professor in Comparative Central and Eastern European Politics at the University of Oxford, for a seminar that placed the political economy of climate mitigation at the heart of contemporary parliamentary politics in Europe. Chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of the ESC, the seminar opened with a simple but powerful observation: mitigation policies typically impose concentrated, short-term costs while delivering diffuse, long-term benefits. This structural asymmetry, Chiru argued, makes climate policy especially vulnerable to politicisation. Against this backdrop, he asked whether mainstream parties in the European Parliament respond to electoral pressure from populist and radical-right (PRR) parties by moderating their support for ambitious climate legislation.

Chiru's empirical strategy exploits a distinctive institutional feature of the European Union. Because MEPs from across member states vote on the same European Commission proposals, roll-call votes in the Ninth European Parliament provide a rare opportunity to examine how domestic political conditions shape transnational legislative behaviour. Focusing on 94 salient mitigation votes across 19 policy files—including the EU Climate Law, ETS reform and vehicle emission standards—Chiru combines a roll-call dataset of around 42,000 observations with Chapel Hill Expert Survey measures of party positions, time-varying national polling to capture PRR strength, and eight semi-structured interviews with MEPs and parliamentary assistants working on ENVI and climate files.

Analytically, Chiru begins from established expectations about MEP voting: national party positions and European party-group coordination matter, but domestic electoral incentives may reinforce the political costs of decarbonisation. He tests the hypothesis that where PRR parties are stronger, mainstream MEPs will be less likely to support ambitious mitigation measures. To do so, he estimates a Bayesian multilevel binomial logit model that nests MEPs within national parties, electoral districts and European party groups, while allowing the effects of PRR support to vary over time at the district level.

Britain, Détente, and the Helsinki CSCE: 'Fathers of the Final Act'

On 28 October 2026, the European Studies Centre hosted a seminar entitled "Britain, Détente, and the Helsinki CSCE: 'Fathers of the Final Act'". Chaired by Anne Deighton (Wolfson College, Oxford), the seminar featured Kai Hebel (Leiden University), who presented research from his forthcoming book on Britain's role in the negotiations leading to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. Responding to the presentation were Paul Betts and Timothy Garton Ash, both of St Antony's College, Oxford. Drawing on extensive multinational archival research and interviews with former negotiators, Hebel argued that Britain's contribution to one of the Cold War's defining diplomatic achievements has been substantially underestimated.

Hebel began by situating the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) within the wider historiography of the Cold War. The Helsinki Final Act, signed on 1 August 1975 after almost three years of negotiations involving thirty-five states, is now widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's most important diplomatic agreements. Yet historians continue to disagree about why it mattered. One school of thought sees Helsinki primarily as a catalyst for the peaceful end of the Cold War, arguing that its human rights provisions encouraged the growth of dissident movements across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. A second interpretation emphasises its more immediate effects, seeing Helsinki as a mechanism for managing rather than transforming conflict by institutionalising dialogue across the Cold War divide, reducing tensions, and creating new forms of cooperation between states. While recognising the importance of both interpretations, Hebel posed a different question: where was Britain in this story?

The question arises because Britain is largely absent from the existing literature. Standard accounts emphasise the Soviet Union, the United States, France and both German states, while Britain's role is frequently overlooked. Hebel suggested that this omission reflects broader assumptions about Britain's international position during the 1970s. The decade is conventionally portrayed as one of economic decline, political crisis and diminishing diplomatic influence. At the very moment when détente appeared to be reshaping East-West relations, Britain seemed marginalised. Relations with Moscow had deteriorated sharply following the expulsion of 105 alleged Soviet intelligence officers from London in 1971, leaving Britain isolated just as its allies were expanding diplomatic engagement with the Soviet Union.

Shifting Support: Western states, the UN, and local perceptions in conflict zones

At this seminar on 21 October, Stefano Costalli (University of Florence) presented joint research with Irene Costantini (University of Naples L’Orientale) and Valerio Vignoli (University of Siena) exploring how local communities perceive and evaluate international interventions in conflict settings. Drawing on a unique survey experiment conducted in Mali, the study sheds new light on the interplay between identity, effectiveness, and integrity in shaping local support for external actors such as the UN, Western powers, and non-Western states. Federica Genovese (St Antony’s College, Oxford) chaired the talk.

From peacekeeping to multipolar interventions
Costalli opened by situating the study in the broader evolution of peacekeeping and intervention research. Although UN peace operations have long been the cornerstone of international conflict management, no new UN missions have been launched since 2014 despite ongoing crises. Increasingly, non-UN actors—from regional organizations to individual states—have taken the lead in military interventions. Yet, much of the literature still analyses interventions from a supply-side perspective, focusing on the interveners rather than the societies affected by them.

The team’s project aims to reverse this imbalance by centring local perceptions and agency. Their approach moves beyond measuring peacekeeping “effectiveness” in terms of reduced violence, asking instead how affected communities perceive different interveners and what factors drive their willingness to support or reject them.

Ukraine and beyond: Shaping Europe’s security future

On 14 October, the European Studies Centre, in collaboration with the Dahrendorf Programme, started the term with a timely seminar on how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to reshape Europe’s security landscape and the transatlantic alliance. The discussion brought together seasoned policy experts Jim O’Bryan and Olya Oliker to reflect on the ongoing conflict, shifting deterrence dynamics, and the prospects for Europe’s defence posture in a changing geopolitical environment. Dimitar Bechev chaired the seminar.

 
European security transformed
Olya Oliker opened the seminar by noting that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine fundamentally transformed Europe’s security order. What was once considered a “settled” system has been replaced by continuing conflict and uncertainty.
Before 2022, perceptions of Russia varied: while the Baltic States and Poland saw Moscow as a potential aggressor, others considered it dangerous but manageable. Even the annexation of Crimea in 2014 did not fully change that view.

The 2022 invasion, she argued, shattered these assumptions. Russia demonstrated its willingness to use force despite immense costs, breaking prior commitments and underestimating both its adversaries and its own limitations. Deterrence now requires a higher threshold than previously imagined.

Germany’s new government: A fragile coalition in a challenging landscape

On 10 June, the ESC hosted a timely seminar with Andreas Busch, who offered a comprehensive analysis of Germany’s new federal government and the broader political shifts shaping the country. Professor Busch—currently an academic visitor at the Centre and Professor of Comparative Politics and Political Economy at the University of Göttingen—drew on his long-standing expertise to assess the government’s early direction and the challenges ahead. The seminar was chaired by Othon Anastasakis, Director of the Centre, with Timothy Garton Ash serving as discussant.

Following the February 2025 general election, Germany’s political landscape has been dramatically reshaped. While the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) made modest gains, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) surged to over 20% of the vote—an unprecedented rise. The Social Democrats (SPD) suffered their worst result in over a century, the Liberals (FDP) fell below the parliamentary threshold, and the Greens underperformed. Die Linke made a surprise comeback, while Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party narrowly missed entry into parliament. The result was a fragile CDU–SPD coalition led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Professor Busch characterised the coalition as functionally pragmatic but internally fragile. Merz has repositioned the CDU in a more conservative direction, particularly on migration, while also abandoning earlier commitments to strict fiscal rules. The SPD, meanwhile, is undergoing internal consolidation under co-leader Lars Klingbeil, who now also serves as finance minister. Both parties face tensions around strategic direction and long-term viability.

Two pressing domestic challenges featured in Busch’s analysis: migration and economic stagnation. Migration continues to dominate public concern, with a majority of Germans favouring tighter restrictions. However, mainstream parties remain largely clustered on the permissive side of the policy spectrum, leaving political space that the AfD has effectively claimed. At the same time, local authorities report growing strain, as they are increasingly burdened with refugee accommodation and integration responsibilities. The disconnect between political rhetoric and practical implementation has become increasingly apparent.

Understanding climate-related disruption of global financial governance

On June 4, 2025, the European Studies Centre welcomed Professor Jeff D. Colgan of Brown University to give the 2025 ESC Annual Lecture entitled “Climate Politics and Global Financial Governance.” As a Richard Holbrooke Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs—and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre—Colgan spoke to a full house of faculty, graduate students, and practitioners. The event was chaired by Dr Othon Anastasakis, Director of the European Studies Centre.

Colgan opened by reminding his audience that Europe exists not in isolation but at the intersection of three vast global systems: the environmental web that sustains all life, the industrial networks that generate the greenhouse emissions driving climate change, and the financial architectures that allocate the capital for both economic growth and decarbonization. Europe, he argued, views these systems through a unique lens. Its robust embrace of ESG and green finance stands in stark contrast to the more cautious attitude of other regions.

Building on this foundation, Colgan described the shocks reverberating through climate politics today. He observed that the Trump administration’s return has once again disrupted U.S. climate diplomacy and science funding, emboldening right-wing parties abroad. Meanwhile, rising interest rates are making capital-intensive clean-energy technologies more expensive relative to traditional fossil-fuel assets. Across Washington and Westminster, a new strain of “climate realism” has taken hold—one that doubts the feasibility of Paris targets and advocates a more pragmatic, if pessimistic, approach. Colgan cautioned that such realism risks abandoning decades of hard-won progress.