Dr Laura H Nordström took part in the very first round of the Europaeum Scholars’ Programme (2018-2019). Following this, she represented the Europaeum as one of its Trustees from 2020 – 2024. Now a Postdoctoral researcher in Political Science and World Politics at the University of Helsinki, Dr Nordström talked to us about what she has been working on since completing the Scholars’ Programme and her PhD. In 2025, she was the recipient of two PhD thesis awards (the UACES 2025 Best PhD Prize and the 2025 Jean Blondel PhD prize) and we were very keen to find out from her more about these achievements and what makes an award-winning PhD thesis.
Photo above: Dr Nordström looking at the Grande Bretagne hotel in Athens where the Troika negotiated.
Could you please briefly tell us what you have been working on since completion of the Scholars’ Programme and subsequently, your PhD? How did the Scholars’ Programme and your involvement as a Europaeum Trustee impact on your thinking and the work you do at present?
After the Scholars’ Programme I still worked a lot on my PhD which I defended in 2024. The research was titled “Power of Experts in the EU: Birth of the Troika and Resilience of the EMU paradigm in the European debt crisis of 2010”. It took several years to finish it as it contained an extensive and unique data of 133 interviewees with EU officials, politicians, advisors, civil society representatives and IMF officials that were key actors during the eurozone crisis.
After that I continued with my focus on EU economic governance and democracy. As I had during the PhD published a report on how democratic the Finnish EU decision-making system is from a citizen’s perspective, I subsequently analysed the democratic legitimacy of the Finnish NextGenerationEU decision-making based on interviews and text documents. I show in the article titled “Democratic Control and Legitimacy of Finnish European Union Policy Process in Crisis Test: Trust, Openness, and the NextGenerationEU” that the Finnish EU decision-making “worked” efficiently, building a (elite) consensus under the democratic control of the Parliament, but lacked throughput legitimacy from the citizen’s perspective.
I have been very fortunate to have been able to continue research work as a postdoc. For 1,5 years I have been with my colleague Matti Ylönen researching the lobbying power of the Big Tech in the EU in our SEE-TECH project. The Big Tech has become the biggest lobbying actor in Brussels. We have uncovered in detail, via more than 100 interviews, their lobbying methods, resources, narratives and power not only in Brussels, but in member states such as Ireland, Luxembourg, France and Germany. While I continue for the next coming years working on this topic, I have also started to research outer space governance in our new project “The Fragile Frontier: Resilient Use of Space in the Post Rules-Based World” (SPACE).
The Scholars’ Programme reinforced my aspiration to strengthen EU democracy via my research on EU, global political economy and lobbying. It also gave me good contacts that have been very useful in conducting the fieldwork and interviews, latest in research stays in Paris and Berlin where I dived into the world of Big Tech lobbying. The programme also provided several practical skills that have been very useful in very different occasions from giving TV interviews to teamworking in our projects.
I am also at the moment editing a book on how to get a job in the EU and how it is to work in the EU institutions, a project very much aligned to the Scholars’ Programme!
Photo above: Laura and fellow Scholars in Oxford at the start of the programme in 2018.
Last year, your PhD thesis won two distinguished prizes – the UACES 2025 Best PhD Prize and the 2025 Jean Blondel PhD prize – huge congratulations on winning not just one but both of these! For those, who do not know about your research, can you please summarise what your thesis was about and what you think makes an award-winning thesis. If you have any advice for those currently writing their PhD thesis, what would that be?
Thanks so much, I am very honoured! The monograph examines the power of experts, more specifically technocracy, in crisis decision-making and the stability of the ordoliberal European Economic and Monetary Union paradigm. It identifies the consulted experts, the content and use of their expertise in the first eurozone crisis management decisions in 2010, the First Greek loan programme and the European Financial Stability Facility. Furthermore, it uncovers how a new knowledge regime, the Troika consisting of the Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, and its internal relations were formed. It is a first detailed process tracing of the birth of the Troika.
I show that the stability of the paradigm resulted from the path dependency of the 2010 ad hoc decision-making in a closed circle that used in-house expertise which a) offered no alternatives, b) relied on ordoliberalism or a least existing institutional knowledge and c) became the de facto decision-makers who worked inside constraints.
The prizes show that the years of detailed empirical work paid off. According to the jury statements, this deep and nuanced analysis was especially appreciated. As said, the work is based on a unique data set of 133 interviews (136 presently, as I conducted still 3 after the defense). I worked hard to reach all the key actors, for example most of the key Troika negotiators of the Greek loan, and I used a lot of their citations in the monograph. Secondly, I managed to choose a topic which had a long-lasting impact.
I argue that the way how the whole eurozone crisis was handled was locked in in spring 2010 with the formation of the new knowledge regime. I was surprised to see that despite extensive research on the eurozone crisis, no detailed process tracing, based on empirical evidence, of the very crucial events of 2010 had been done. The jury appreciated my original findings that are also relevant to other present crises. Lastly, they appreciated as well that I had done rigorous work to refine theoretical discussions on the impact of ideas in politics, particularly on discourse analysis and regime theory, and that I developed a clear process tracing method validating a causal mechanism. These positive comments were welcome as I am in the process of publishing the dissertation as a shorter book.
If your want to know more about the results, you can read the dissertation here.
I wish for all PhD scholars to choose boldly topics that have a big societal relevance and courage to go also against the general narratives in research (my research for example criticises the common perception of the eurozone crisis decisions dictated by some member states). Take your time to read a lot of theory, but do not forget to enjoy life!
Finally, the Europaeum will be visiting University of Helsinki later in the autumn for its Technology Forum on Space Governance from 19-20 October 2026. How does your work relate to this topic?
As mentioned, half of my working time currently goes to studying outer space politics and governance in our SPACE project. It is a fascinating topic as space has entered a new period of privatisation, geopolitical competition and militarisation. At the same time, we are more and more reliant on satellites. Fascinating is also our team, as we political scientists do interdisciplinary research with space physicists and legal scholars. Our modest aim is to find ways to govern the low Earth orbit, where most of the satellites are presently, activities in a more sustainable way. My research will again mainly focus on lobbying, such as the power of firms in space governance. Currently, I am researching the impact of interest groups on the EU Space Act. Other topics that I am analysing with my colleagues are how we should conceptualise sovereignty in space and what is the role of citizens in space politics.
