Can the EU’s ambitious gender targets in development cooperation bring more women and girls in developing countries to be a part of the global digital transformation?

E-commerce has flourished in the pandemic, and the rising star of online shopping is ‘buy now, pay later’. While service providers now lead in shaping consumer behaviour, Law researcher Nikita Divissenko suggests the EU might play a more proactive role in these innovating markets.

People who perpetuate conspiracy theories about a fraudulent election are only too happy to point to erroneous polls as support for their claims. Now that it appears the US election is really over, EUI economists David Levine and Andrea Mattozzi offer some thoughts regarding political polling and election forecasts.

Why is the pandemic an EU problem? For Lucas Schramm, high levels of integration and a desire for European solidarity have brought the novel coronavirus crisis to the EU’s doorstep.

The pandemic has brought heightened attention to gender-based violence, creating an opportunity to spark a renewed sense of urgency and galvanise wider changes to protect the security of women and children.

On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Dr Jeffrey Miller reflects on the particularly heavy burden that the COVID-19 pandemic presents for deaf and hard of hearing individuals.

To achieve gender parity in politics we need to target the gatekeepers: male party leadership. School of Transnational Governance Policy Leader Fellow Costanza Hermanini argues that effective programmes for the empowerment of women are those that make party leaders aware of the political value of parity, and of the practical obstacles to a woman’s political career.

President-elect Joe Biden has plenty of diplomatic issues to tackle in his approaching tenure as the 46th President of the United States. While some tout the importance of immediate steps to signify America’s renewed embrace of “values and democracy”, Nicholas Noe suggests starting with a more pragmatic and inclusive approach: “vaccine diplomacy”.

The production and use of data for evidence-informed policy-making is ever more an expert’s game. Political scientist Prof Dr Gaby Umbach takes a nuanced look at ‘governing by knowing’.

COVID-19 has forced derogations from and limitations to rights at every level. However, there are some populations for which the pandemic has generated rights victories previously considered out of reach. EUI Professor of Public International Law Neha Jain puts the spotlight on one such vulnerable population––prisoners––to explore how COVID-19 has helped change the discourse on the rights of detainees to ignite prospects for prison reform.