Profiles

Kurt Richard Luther is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Keele University, where he convenes the Keele European Parties Research Unit (KEPRU), and currently Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna. Of late, his current research has focused on the impact of European integration on the internal organization of western European parties, on Austrian political parties and the Austrian party system, and on the organizational adaptation of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs. His recent publications include numerous journal articles and book chapters on these themes, as well as the following co-edited volumes: The Europeanization of National Political Parties. Power and Organizational Adaptation (Routledge, 2007 with Aylott, Carter, Ladrech and Poguntke) and Political Parties in the New Europe. Political and Analytical Challenges (Oxford University Press, 2005 with Müller-Rommel).

Jaap van Donselaar is a cultural anthropologist, associate professor at Leiden University and researcher with the Anne Frank Stichting. He has devoted a great deal of time conducting research on racism and radicalism, as well as on the response to these phenomena. In 1991 he earned a doctorate with the thesis Fout na de oorlog, een onderzoek naar de geschiedenis van naoorlogs rechtsextremisme in Nederland (On the wrong side after the war: A study of the history of post-war right-wing extremism in the Netherlands). In 1996 Van Donselaar founded the Racism & Extremism Monitor (www.monitorracisme.nl). He has also conducted research on combating racism and extremism in the Netherlands and in Europe.

In 2008, Joost van Spanje took up a four-year postdoc position at the Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam. Four years earlier, Joost was selected for admission to the doctoral programme of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. He was an exchange PhD student in the Wilf Family Department of Politics at New York University (NYU) in 2006. Before this, he finished his Law (2001) and Political Science (2004) studies at the University of Amsterdam. Joost specializes in electoral behavior and political communication. His research resulted in publications in leading international political science journals such as West European Politics, Party Politics, Comparative European Politics and the European Journal of Political Research.