PhD Student
tom.massart@ulb.be
Adresse courrier :
ULB - Campus du Solbosch
Avenue F.D. Roosevelt, 50 - CP 124
1050 Bruxelles
Adresse visiteur :
Bâtiment S, 11è étage - Bureau : S11.117
Avenue Jeanne, 44
1050 Bruxelles
Bio
I am an FNRS Doctoral Research Fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) where I am affiliated with the Cevipol. I hold a master’s degree in European studies from the University of Louvain (UCLouvain). My doctoral dissertation focuses on the emergence of common EU debt during the Covid-19 pandemic, based on actors’ strategic construction of European bonds through frames. I am at the end of my doctoral studies, which are due to finish in early 2025. In addition to my research, I like to keep my passion for Europe alive through outreach (e.g. Team Europe Direct expert, Understanding Europe Trainer) and teaching activities. I also have a passion for language, discourse studies and linguistics. In my private time, I play badminton and I am also a keen hiker and walker.
CV
- Since 2024: Co-coordinator of the Working group ‘Europe’ of the Belgian French-speaking political science association (ABSP)
- Since 2024: Co-coordinator of the International French-Speaking Research group on EU Studies (GrUE)
- Since 2024: Member of the Belgian Team Europe Direct
- Since January 2021: Phd candidate – FNRS Research Fellow (since October 2021)
- October-December 2020 - Research Assistant at UCLouvain
- June 2020: Master’s degree in European Studies at UCLouvain University
- Full CV
Areas of research
- European socio-economic governance
- European political economy
- Joint debt
- European Semester
- Economy and Monetary Union of the European Union
- Teaching
-
Past Teaching (2022, 2023)
POLID104: Methodical approaches of political issues - Research
-
My research focuses on common debt as taboo within European socioeconomic governance. After being rejected during the Maastricht negotiations, the question of common borrowing reappeared during the financial crisis and was strongly rejected. Yet, the situation changed in 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic, which triggered an unexpected U-turn: the issuance of European and green bonds under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) to stabilise the economy and invest in the digital and green transitions. Thus, my doctoral dissertation focuses on the emergence of the unexpected. In other words, how was the common debt taboo broken? Its objective is to analyse the political conditions that led to the fragile agreement in 2020 to issue common debt for the purpose of investing in and stabilising the European economy. Using a strategic constructivist framework, I show that actors strategically constructed common debt by playing on its different understandings (polysemy), which paved the way for discursive entrepreneurs to shape a consensus. In fact, they strategically reconfigured their framing of common debt and the way it was legitimised. To do so, I conduct a frame analysis and a study of metaphors, based on the discourse of four actors (the President of the Commission and the relevant Commissioners, the President of the European Council, the Spanish Prime Minister and the Dutch Prime Minister) from 2010 until 2021.
- Publications
-
Moreira Ramalho, T., Massart, T., & Crespy, A. (2024). Resilient austerity? National economic discourses before the pandemic in the European Union. Politics & policy,(1-29). https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/377550/3/MoreiraRamalhoMassartCrespy_ResilientAusterity.pdf
Crespy, A., Massart, T., & Moreira Ramalho, T. (2024). Embedding past, present and future crises: time and the political construction of the Covid-19 pandemic in the EU. Journal of European integration, 1-21. doi:10.1080/07036337.2024.2329995 https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/372817/3/Published-version.pdf
Massart, T., Vos, T., Egger, C., Dupuy, C., Morel-Jean, C., Magni-Berton, R., & Roché, S. (2021). The Resilience of Democracy in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Democratic Compensators in Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Politics of the Low Countries, 3(2), 113-137. doi:10.5553/PLC/.000018 https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/332722/1/doi_316366.pdf
Crespy, A., Massart, T., & Schmidt, V. (2023). How the impossible became possible: evolving frames and narratives on responsibility and responsiveness from the Eurocrisis to NextGenerationEU. Journal of European public policy, 34(4), 950-976. https://www.elevenjournals.com/tijdschrift/PLC/2021/2/PLC-D-21-00007