Norman’s research interests include European politics, democratic responses to anti-system actors, the institutions of the European Union and democratic theory. Norman also has a keen interest in social science methodology, and in particular qualitative and mixed-methods approaches to social scientific research.
Norman is currently heading a project funded by the Swedish Research Council called Dilemmas of Democratic Self Defense in European Public Broadcasting. The project analyses how public broadcasting organizations across Europe have responded to the rise and increasing influence of populism and more extreme political forces and the democratic dilemmas they face in doing so. This builds on previous work focusing on how the political mainstream push back at anti-system actors.
He is the author of the book The Mechanisms of Institutional Conflict in the European Union (Routledge, 2017) and he has recently published the edited volumes Dilemmas of European Democracy: New Perspectives on Democratic Politics in the European Union (2023, Edinburgh University Press) (w. Niklas Bremberg) as well as Robustness and Fragility of Political Orders (2022, Cambridge University Press) (with Richard Ned Lebow). His research articles have appeared in Democratization, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of European Public Policy, Cooperation and Conflict, Political Studies, European Journal of Social Theory and the Journal of Common Market Studies.
