Bastian KENN

Bio

Bastian Kenn is a PhD Fellow at the Centre d’études de la vie politique (CEVIPOL) and ULB’s Institut d’études européennes (IEE). His dissertation is a discursive analysis of EU policies at the intersection of education and employment. Bastian is broadly interested in European politics, social policy, political economy, and qualitative research methods.

CV

• Since 2022: Doctoral Fellow, Université libre de Bruxelles
• 2021 - 2022: Master of Arts, European Political and Governance Studies, College of Europe, Bruges
• 2019 - 2021: Research Master, Political Science, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
• 2017 - 2019: Project Manager, European Democracy Lab/eusg, Berlin
• 2017: Campaign Manager, Social Democratic Party of Germany, Mainz
• 2014 – 2017: Bachelor of Arts, International Relations and International Organization, University of Groningen
• Full CV
   

Areas of research

• Politics and policies of the EU
• Social policy, welfare state reform, futures of work, education
• Qualitative research methods

Research

My dissertation is a longitudinal study of EU policies and politics at the intersection of education and employment, covering roughly 30 years between the European Year of Lifelong Learning in 1996 and the European Year of Skills in 2023/2024. I argue that through policy and discursive practices, the EU has become a central actor in promoting education as employment policy. Against the backdrop of successive crises, I show how such discourse has become unapologetically neoliberal, relegating social-democratic concerns while increasingly conceiving of “capitalism as an immutable and objective mechanism for distributing ethical outcomes” (Means, 2015: 6). I use discourse analysis, expert interviews, and observant participation.

Publications

Kenn, B. (2025). EU Social Policy in 2024: Parliamentary Politics for Social Europe. Journal of Common Market Studies, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.70032

Crespy, A., Kenn, B., Marenco, M., & Spasova, S. (2025). The EU Compromise Machine and the Politicisation of Social Policy: Lessons from Platform Work. Journal of European Social Policy, 0(0). https://doi.org/ 10.1177/09589287251345912

Crespy, A., Gaffney, S., Kenn, B., & Shahini, V. (2025). Beyond market vs. social citizenship: Economic imperatives and the building of a pan-European labour market. European Journal of Social Security, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13882627251349094

Kenn, B. (2023). Unger (Mathilde) – La justice sociale dans l’Union européenne. Citoyenneté et droits au-delà de l’État. – Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2022. 308 p. Revue française de science politique, 73, 146-147. https://doi.org/10.3917/rfsp.731.0146