Currently, I am working on disinformation narratives and strategies aimed at countering disinformation in the European Union. This research is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe SAUFEX project (2024-2027). In particular, I investigate disinformation campaigns and counteraction around elections to the European Parliament and national elections in France.
Previously, my main research focus was on differentiated (dis)integration in the European Union. I examined both internal and external differentiation dynamics, while looking at the cases of Poland, France, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. This research was possible thanks to two UACES research networks: Differentiated integration in the EU after ‘Brexit’ (2017-2020) and The Limits of EUrope: Challenging the Crisis of European Integration (2019-2022). I was also investigator on a project entitled Differentiated integration, Turkish accession prospects and EU geopolitics, funded by the National Science Centre in Poland (2016-2021).
In the past, I worked extensively on EU external action, with a focus on European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership. On one hand, I explored processes of external Europeanization with regard to Eastern Partnership countries: in the years 2013-2016 I was PI on a project entitled Europeanization of political parties and interest groups in the context of the Eastern Partnership, funded by the National Science Centre in Poland. On the other hand, I analyzed internal functions of the European Neighbourhood Policy, while focusing on the politics of legitimation. Using Bourdieu’s field theory, I argued in a book published by Routledge that the ENP was formulated not only in reaction to external challenges and threats, but also in response to EU internal legitimacy needs.
I also examined internal dynamics in the European Union: both at the level of EU institutions and member states. I served as member of the Advisory Board, chaired by Herman van Rompuy, of the Erasmus+ project TRACK led by the University of Cologne (2019-2021). I explored the asymmetry of the Polish-German relationship in the EU, in the framework of projects funded by the Polish-German Science Foundation and Institut für Europäische Politik in Berlin: the results were published in edited volumes by Routledge and Nomos.
Finally, I studied interest representation and advocacy both at the national and European level. My doctoral dissertation dealt with Europeanization of Polish business interest groups in the immediate post-accession period. More recently, I worked on patterns of Polish and German lobbying and advocacy in a comparative perspective in the framework of a project entitled Wissen ist Macht: Grenzen der Politikberatung und des Lobbyismus im politischen Entscheidungsprozess – politische Expertenkultur im deutsch-polnischen Vergleich, led by the European University Viadrina and funded by the Polish-German Science Foundation. The results were published by Springer.
Agnieszka Cianciara 