Rethinking Education for Transnational Governance — A Conversation with Fabrizio Tassinari

In the latest episode of Beyond Neo-liberalism, our host Hagen Schulz-Forberg is joined by political scientist and executive director, Fabrizio Tassinari, as we explore his work at European University Institute’s School of Transnational Governance and his works on developing new forms of diplomatic training, suitable for an age of planetary polycrisis.

Throughout the episode we explore questions of what it means to educate our future diplomats in times of planetary crisis, what is left of the old forms of transnational governance and what can guide future visions of global governance.

Academic Reference: 

Fabrizio Tassinari, Hagen Schulz-Forberg; Rethinking Education for Transnational Governance — A Conversation with Fabrizio Tassinari. Global Perspectives 25 March 2026; 7 (1): 158897. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2026.158897

This podcast was created and produced by the Research Center for New Critical Politics and Governance (CPG).

To watch the video version of this episode, please visit the link below:
https://cas.au.dk/en/cpg/podcast/mapping-the-planetary

Transcript

Hagen: Welcome back to Planetary Choices. Today I'm speaking to Fabrizio Tassinari, who is the founding executive director of the European University Institute’s School of Transnational Governance.  Now, it's a fascinating place, the EUI, and particularly in these days, you wonder what transnational governance means or how you educate people in that direction.  So, I'm fascinated and happy to talk with Fabrizio today.  Before he joined the EUI in Florence, Fabrizio was head of foreign policy studies at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.  He's also been an adjunct professor at the Department of Social Science in Berlin at Humboldt University.  And so, I'm really happy about having you on the show, Fabrizio.  

Fabrizio: Pleasure, and thanks so much for inviting me, Hagen.  

Hagen: Well, thank you for your time.  And maybe we can start by asking you to tell us a little bit about how you got the idea of founding a school of transnational governance, and also about you’re not very secret, because you published on it, love about Nordic governance that maybe has inspired you on your way to shaping education on governance.  

Fabrizio: Pleasure, yes, absolutely.  Look, of course, I wish the idea for the school was only mine.  But as the saying goes, when there is a story that is successful or that works out, there are often very many mothers and fathers.  So, there will be many people, if you talk around, that will tell you, I'm the father of the school or I’m the mother of the school.  I'm one of them. And I was the one that was quite literally parachuted from Copenhagen to set it up.  And I can tell you a little bit more about it later.  And definitely, you know, the experience that I had in Denmark was formative for the mindset and also the approach that eventually ended up becoming the school.  I spent in Denmark on and off a good part of my adult life, really, and career.  And the experience at the Danish Institute for International Studies was the longest one I had.  What I've taken away from that experience is, first of all, a very close understanding and also a certain fondness for the way in which government and governance is conducted in a mature democracy.  And that goes anywhere from observing how ministries work and how they interact with political power and the government to really appreciate the nonsense, “no-nonsense "approach to really getting a whole of society take on complex governance issues. And all of governance includes anywhere from business to civil society to government to the media.  And I've seen that time and again in different areas. I was running the foreign policy unit at the time of the COP 15 summit in Copenhagen, which is probably not the best example of how this governance approach actually worked out.  But it certainly is the kind of things that taught me how, you know, cohesive and synergetic is the way of working.  And I cannot stress this enough, especially having worked in other European contexts, this autonomy of the civil service to really provide continuity to policymaking and making choices that are meant to be really evidence-based, data-based.  And amazingly, as a Southern European, to observe how politicians listen. And, you know, I come from a part of the world where it's really the other way around.  It's the politician coming in and saying this is how it’s done. And it's refreshing.  

Hagen: Well, that's great. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but I have to share that I guess some of us here in Denmark would also would like the politicians to listen a little more.  There are a lot of ministry-driven reforms that are difficult to dodge and to always make our voice heard is also not always ideal. So, I don't mean bleak in the picture here.  And I'm sure that in general, what you’re talking about in Denmark and of course, in many other Nordic countries as well, if I take it correctly, what you mean is there is a certain standard of civil service.  There's a norm, there's a normative approach or there’s an understanding of what civil service is and what a civil servant does. And I think that brings me to a question here of if you could just quickly say what governance then is.  Who are the ones doing it and what is it? 

Fabrizio: I mean, there are, of course, different definitions. And in our case, as I might get a chance to explain later, the transnational part of it is really at the core of it.  But the ability to govern a constituency and a space is for me at the core of what governance means. And what we were just talking about before, it is yes, about standards.  But this is really a very, you know, at the heart of it is really a Weberian concept of professionalizing this of making the business of governance something that is done according to precisely standards and a rational planning and rational choices. So, you know, there can be very different ways of interpreting governance. But for me, especially again, sorry to make it autobiographical, but as a Southern European, there is the element of predictability that is really very, very important.  And that for me is also what governance is about, knowing what comes next and trying to anticipate events.  Certain procedure, a reliance on certain procedures and reliability there.

Hagen: I see that.  Yes. Well, so you take that inspiration to Florence and what you just described as governance being, you know, enabling a government or in the running of a constituency, in the best possible way: in transparent, open, maybe even democratic...at least open ways, and effective ways at the same time.  I guess, you know, we also have, there's also something to say about budgeting, the budgeting of governance.  But then, how does it work with transnational governments where constituencies are not that clear? 

Fabrizio: That's a very good question.   So, if I were to tell you where would we put more emphasis in our planning of the school and our conceptualizing of the school, certainly, transnational ended up playing a bigger role than governance, because that's what we thought would be, and still think, is the sort of core business of   what we're trying to do and where the critical mass of our theory is.  Transnational for us is, well, at the very basic and fundamental level, thinking beyond the state as a unit of analysis.  That is sort of the minimalistic   definition of transnational.  That's still is a very bit thin if you want to define a constituency. So, for us really where the sort of sweet spot, if you want to put it in a pop term, is where the convergence between different actors is really   delivering public goods.  So, again, the example of climate is good because you can have their policies that are perfectly designed on paper, but unless you have the buy in from businesses civil society, governments, perhaps even media, the policy is not going to work.  So, for us, it is really about systematically identifying the areas, and climate is one, artificial intelligence, digital governance is another, migration policy is another, security policy, which is what, you know, the world I come from, is another...  To try to identify the areas where the synergy among different actors take place.  Finally, I hope I'm not making the answers too long, but this became an inherent part of what transnational meant for us.  The European University Institute is an inherently European institution, the DNA, we are in fact an international organization by design.  So, for us transnational is really the essence of being European. But then we said we need to reach out beyond Europe, so we really try to go systematically beyond Europe to Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia to try to see how we can, you know, compare and contrast the lessons of transnationality.  

Hagen: But let's go then to the beginning of the School of Transnational Governance.  How did that go? I'm sure it was a bit of a of a steep climb of a steep learning curve.  How did you do it? And which were the obstacles you met along the way? And how many goals did you have to redefine?  

Fabrizio: Okay, anybody who has built something, you know, listen to this question will probably smile because I could go on for a long time about obstacles, but I'll try to make it short.  Look, the school was initially, speaking about mothers and fathers, the then president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, thought that, and I'm quoting the European Commission here, this is not my words, thought that Europe needed a Kennedy School of governance, of Government, you know, the Harvard Kennedy School, they say Europe needs an equivalent of that. Which, again, I say it because that was their words, but it put the bar a little bit high for what we were meant to be doing.  But then in our thinking, it was always a matter of saying, okay, but if there is a Kennedy School, then we are not in the business of replicating what is there already, even though we are in Europe.  So, we need to do it with a twist. We need to really reflect on what it is that we can contribute that is fundamentally difference. And that's where the transnationality, thematically, came in.  Then, you know, in its infinite wisdom, the Commission also thought that, you know, they needed to have a business plan and they asked us to make the school viable within the first seven years, as in you wanted to hear before about budget or a government budget or issues related to governance, well, the school is effectively   a startup. I mean, we had to, yes, we have generous support from the European Commission.  We also have generous support from the Italian government that gives us an amazing building here in the center of Florence, which, you know, is going to be when it's finished.  It's a renaissance building that is being renovated. It's going to be the largest campus in Europe by size, 22,000 square meters.  But apart from that, we had to earn our own survival, as it were.  So that meant that we had to design and reflect on designing programs that would conceivably have an audience of practitioners from all walks of public life that could somehow grasp the necessity and the urgency of this proposition about transnational governance.  I can tell you, you know, of course, I’m biased, having been around since the beginning, but I can tell you we started out as a group of five people. Now we are about give or take, 320.  So, you can see the business plan has worked out so far so well, which means that irrespective of how the world is turning out, and I'm sure we can talk about this later, somebody still understands that there maybe is a need for this kind of approach.  

Hagen: Well, congratulations. That sounds like a very steep curve and a very steep increase, and I hope you get the revenues in so that you can sustain the school.  Yeah, but that's yeah.  So, let's talk a little bit about the content you mentioned security climate migration.  Who is coming to study?

Fabrizio: Very good question, Hagen. So, look, by design, our programs are not meant to be tailor made for one specific profession or one specific target group.  They are meant to foster the conversation, precisely in a transversal way among different professions.  Case in point, I mentioned the theme but let me give you another example: we have had for the past four years, the only EU funded program on training African leaders.  This is the only program existing from the EU, and we have trained so far dozens of leaders in Florence, and we will train hundreds of leaders in Africa next, so the program is actually moving from Florence to Africa.  And there, I mean, the amazing thing has been to have in the room for three months at a time in Florence.  Mid-career, high potential African practitioners from all walks of public life, whether it was government startups think tanks, international organizations.   And to have them, I’m tempted to say discuss because technically they were here to learn but when you set it up that way you learn from them as much as you teach them, because often they are really much more knowledgeable than you on certain issues.  So really, our job we are discovering is often as often as much about fostering a conversation as it is to simply convey information, which, you know, from a personal intellectual point of view is extremely rewarding.  But it also requires a certain methodology which you know we are trying to hone I mean we're trying to, for example, create original case studies on transnational governance, which you know are published on our website but that we are creating on the basis of the people that actually have been in a specific policy experience and they narrate it.  And then we have professors, precisely from business schools, like Harvard Business School that are trained to teach case studies, which is a very participatory and really, it's actually a wonderful thing to watch and observe because you have the participants really taking roles.  So, there is a methodological angle there is a thematic angle, and there is a stakeholder angle to really bring these actors in the same room to foster a conversation.  

Hagen: Sounds fascinating and it sounds very convincing and I guess I'd love to take one of those classes.  

Fabrizio: You're more than welcome to join us at any time.  

Hagen: How do you make sure that you are educating them in a way that fits the world out there? 

Fabrizio: And this is an important question because it also goes to the heart of the viability of an institution like this, because if we train people that they cannot you know if they cannot use what they’re learning here, then you know, in a few years we could be out of business, right?  

Hagen: I mean I can, forgive me, but I can see a critical voice coming.  You're training African leaders, who are you to tell the Africans what to do in Africa?  

Fabrizio: Let me tackle that head on but then I'll come back to the, let's say, utility of this. When it comes to Africa, first of all, it is an extremely sensitive issue to say:  we, a European institution, are creating a training program for African leaders.   That is, you know, it touches all the hotspots at every possible level. So, what I can tell you, point number one, we took very deliberately then, I wouldn't call it a precaution, it was by design, the program has been designed by an Ethiopian professor here, so it is an Ethiopian professor of ours, helped by another one from Nigeria, an economist, that are leading the program.  Point number one, point number two, these two leads are convening a number of guest lectures and they are again by design, half of them from Africa, and half of them from Europe.  Because the purpose of the program is not only about improve, self-improvement   of the participants that they become better professionals.  It is about creating a new conversation between Europe and Africa.  So, you see, being the UI, a European institution and, you know, very close to the institutions in Brussels, it also means we have a societal role and maybe even geopolitical if you want to put it that way to make programs like this useful for the bigger conversation that needs to happen, in this case, between Europe and Africa.  And I will tell you finally on this but I think   it is interesting; our program is called   Young African Leaders Program.  We modeled it on something that the Obama administration launched, I think 10 years ago, called   Young African Leaders Initiative.  So, we are the European version of the American one.  The American, being American, is very much about   self-improvement, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they train professionals to become better professionals.  We are training people to become better at having a conversation with Europeans.  And at having this dialogue of civilizations, I don't know what you want to call it, transcontinental...  So, there is a normative objective there.  And it's not an easy conversation at all.    I mean, all the things come up We have our classrooms with 16th century frescoes portraying scenes of slavery, and our African leaders asked us to cover the frescoes because they think that they are insulted.  So, this is the kind of conversations I think it's very important to have; they are not easy at all but they're important to have. 

Hagen: So, another advantage, I would say of being in Florence here because of course, such a palace, or such a fresco, such a place and, you like it or not, Renaissance thought and then later Enlightenment thought, and of course colonialism, is the multilayered history that shapes the sensitivities of today to a strong degree.  So that's a sensitive task and a very important task.  I'm glad to hear that you seem to manage.  

Fabrizio: It's a work, I mean, really from what I'm saying   it's also maybe transpiring that it's really a work in progress every single day, but it's work.  

Hagen: Okay, that's great.  Let's get back to how much is your program, you know, fitting a fast-changing world out there?

Fabrizio: So, it's a good segue there because look, we have of course data about where our graduates go because we don't only have mid-careers, we also have an entry level master program and then we just see where they go.  And what we discovered, you know, we are after all a social science institution.  We are not a business school. We are closer to a public policy school, if you like.  So, we expected, as one does, that most of our graduates would go to work for governments or to work for international organizations, which they do. I mean, I think a good plurality of them do.  But what we discovered to our graduates' surprise is that many of them end up in the private sector.  And that means, I mean, again, this was not, is not designed as an education to train people   going into business.  But this maybe is an element that shows the success of it because it shows that what we are teaching is irrelevant even for business, right? So, they go to work precisely on things like how should business handle climate policy in an increasingly multi-stakeholder environment.  And if you have people training that, maybe the private sector finds that useful. 

Hagen: Absolutely. Absolutely.  Can I ask a question about the classroom?  

Fabrizio: Yeah, sure.  

Hagen: Or the seminar room.  We always say often, for lack of a better term, to describe the complexity of the continent, we say Africa, right?  And, of course, Africa is extremely large.  We've had the discussion about the remapping of the "marcato" design.  That was very, you know, impressive.   And of course, Africa speaks many languages, just as Europe.  So, does the role...what is happening in your classroom?  Do you all speak English?   Do you translate? Do you make language an actual, an issue in the classroom?  What's happening there? 

Fabrizio: I mean, the language of instruction is English.  So that's the short answer.   And they need to be fully proficient.  

Hagen: So English is where you meet.  

Fabrizio: Yeah, yeah, English is the lingua franca.  There is no doubt about that.  But I also will say, and again, I'm biased here, but  the EUI as an institution, and I know you  will have my president at some point  later in on this program,  it is a genuinely multicultural institution  I mean, I can easily come  into a room that only speaks Spanish or I  mean, the instruction is in English, but  then, you know, there could be a working  group taking place in  Spanish, another one in French.  And there is a really large group of Germans here now, which is good.   And they will speak German, of course.   So, multilingualism, you know, is a very European utopia because, you know, you go to Brussels and then they are all literally translated, every document is translated in 20, whatever, five languages.  But here, I don't know, it's as if you will leave it in practice. So, yeah, I think they need to speak English.  Otherwise, it would be impossible for us to be able to run a program. But otherwise, the sky's the limit.  

Hagen: That's interesting. I remember I still had to pass a French test when I came to the EUI. So that gives me how old I am.   I see. So, that's that.  And then you have, of course, certain ideals, I guess, in the School of Transnational Governance. Not only do you want to make, you know, people that can run businesses or sustain yourself because you have enough students.  So why the transnational?  Why is the transnational so important?  And we mentioned security and that's, of course, obvious that there's a transnational sector to that. But how do you make all of those various policy fields? And I repeat now the ones that you mentioned, I can remember those three, migration, security and climate or, you know, planetary perspectives on it, after all, this is called planetary choices.  How do you make those three policy fields, which are seemingly very difficult to integrate… How do you make them?  Do you make them speak to each other?  Do you think climate and security together?  Do you have like a new climate security nexus? So what?  

Fabrizio: No, no, no, no. 

Hagen: What's going on there?  

Fabrizio: No, no. Okay. So did our program, our sort of, let's say, flagship programs, which are an entry level master and then we have an executive master.  What you will have been a first year where the fundamentals, what we call the fundamentals of transnational governance are really hammered out in a very systematic way.  And this is interdisciplinary, first of all.  I mean, we have lawyers, economists, political scientists, historians...  And we teach courses like, you know, the institutions of transnational governance, the law of transnational governance, the history of transnational governance, that’s a little bit we are trying to mainstream that because, you know, you want to have a little bit of that in every course.  And on that basis, then, I mean, again, be mindful, we want to get people that when they come out of here, and I'm very conscious, self-conscious about this.  I need them to be able to go on the labor market and find something that they can use.  So, I cannot, I mean, I can tell you a lot of experiments we have made about, you know, connecting the dots and making some of these areas speak to each other.  We have, for example, a Chair in artificial intelligence and democracy, just to give you an example.  So, we really try this this thing in a very experimental way.  But in the end of the day, I need the students that get out of here to find a job and to have meaning and relevance in what they have learned here.  So then, each of these areas that you mentioned and a few others I can mention but they are each specialization that they can choose. Then they have full access to, you know, audit the other courses if they want to, but they will specialize in one area.  

Hagen: So, let's focus a little bit on the climate issue then. 

Fabrizio: Yeah.

Hagen: The climate topic. 

Fabrizio: Yes. 

Hagen: And I have a first very, it’s basically driven by curiosity and maybe naive to ask. Do you teach different governance units for the climate, then for the security?  I mean, I imagine biospheres have different borders than states.  And if we have a planetary, you know, approach to things, well, maybe that planetary constituency or that biosphere, if we understand it as a constituency that has some kind of needs or different borders cut across a couple of country borders, does that does that matter in any way? 

Fabrizio: No, I mean, so first of all, I can hear from your phrasing the climate is of close interest to you which is probably, I don't know if that's the case. I don't focus on climate myself.

Hagen: I just wanted to contrast. I just wanted to find out whether you know what the content of these different fields is.  

Fabrizio: I'm happy to answer. I’m saying, I would love to introduce you to my climate professor to answer more in depth.  But in general, what we're are trying to do there is to take climate policy in, I mean, in the climate is an interesting case because it started out as a policy that, sorry, as a specialization that was designed by the former director general of the European Commission so director general in charge of the EU climate agenda, his name is Jos Delbeke, you can look it up.  He retired and after having driven the EU policy 10 years, then he became a professor with us.  So, he for example was the person that was in charge of the whole ETS system of carbon credits.  He invented that.  So, a lot of his approach is about how other parts of the world are adapting to the logic of trading carbon credits and is that something that is useful to advance the overall acceptability of climate policies.  At the same time, it became apparent that there is a whole dimension of the climate discourse that maybe by default we are not covering if the person running the curriculum is from the institution.  So, we basically had a reflection that now it's going to become, you know, also part of our curriculum, about bringing in sensibilities coming from the civil society and sustainability about how to design climate policies that are more widely accepted by the population.  And very finally, I mean this is what is happening really now in the next couple of days, we are bringing the planetary discourse into that particular specialization, precisely because some of the researchers and scholars that have pushed for the work on the work on planetary policy, including Nils Gilman and John Blake, they’re going to come here for the purpose of trying to see whether and how planetarity can become a new lexicon to train future.  They say future diplomats, we will have to tell them it's broader than diplomats, but that is a little bit the thing.  

Hagen: Yeah, that's true. They dream of populating the world of embassies and ministries and with planetary.  How would I say this?  Planetarily Sapience?  

Fabrizio: Yes, sapience. Yes, that's the point. 

Hagen: Staff.  

Fabrizio: Yes. I hope we're not going to let them down because that is a high bar, but there’s something there that I think is very interesting.  

Hagen: So, you're able to absorb and be in touch with the latest intellectual trends and activist trends and as well as tapping into a large experience of policymaking in the European Union.  So that is a solid foundation.  

Fabrizio: I will be very frank. The EUI is by tradition very strong intellectually, it really meant, and you know this since you...  

Hagen: I'm a graduate.  

Fabrizio: You're a graduate. So, you know, I mean, it is a fortunate island that it attracts some of the most interesting, intellectual voices in Europe and beyond.  So that is our starting point. And I think this is what also makes the school a little bit different from many other public policy schools that are much more professionalizing.  But then again, since the Commission came in so heavily in designing and funding our school, we also want to be sure that our narrative is attuned to the realities of policymaking in Brussels.  So, we, I can tell you for our internships, our students, the vast majority end up spending months inside the institutions to actually be trained, many of them in the External Action Service.  So, the diplomatic idea that our friends from the planetary sapiens have is not completely wrong there.  And then, yes, civil society, increasingly so, I would say that is maybe the art that is less represented together with business.  But certainly, the intellectual input is very strong and the institutional input is very strong.  

Hagen: Let's move to the security part. You also mentioned that this is also a little bit your own backyard. 

Fabrizio: Yeah. 

Hagen: I can understand that, of course, they’re difficult to match in these programs.  So, what is happening there?  Do you see, do you attract a different kind of student? Do you attract a different kind of background?  And is there, what are the difficulties in this day and age?  I find it very difficult, particularly when you have these, let's call them, you know, experts, policymaking experts in an increasingly fragile institutional setup. I mean, I've been talking to Michael Zürn the other day and started the conversation by saying that global governance is dead. He identified the death of global governance this January in the Oval Office in Washington when President Zelensky was openly scolded by President Trump and Vice President Vance, saying that it's totally out of hand.  We may not agree with that or put it into a different perspective. But let's just say there is an increasingly fragile or unreliable institutional landscape out there towards which, I guess, graduates from your governance school are interested in working.  Do you integrate that in your program? What's going on?  

Fabrizio: No, this I feel quite confident about. And let me say one quick thing about what you said from Michael Zürn, who was actually presenting that paper here a couple of weeks ago.  The school was created in 2017.  So, this was one year after the first election of Donald Trump and one year after Brexit.  So even if the world has moved on from there, well, some patterns have stayed and in fact they have magnified and the fact that Trump is still there after 8 years is unfortunately one of examples of that.  So, what I want to preface by the answer is by saying that implicitly there was always a very strong normative agency in creating the school at that time.  It was again, I cannot point to any official document where we say this, but I feel confident to say to you, it was a response to the message coming from the election of Trump and the Brexit.  So, if that message was broadly speaking about closing borders, xenophobia, trade wars, well, we were basically saying no, there is a different world out there and we’re not giving up on it.  So, this is the premise. Now...  

Hagen: And the world is a core liberal norm.  

Fabrizio: Yes, but of course, and this is the second part of your question, we are living in a world where this liberal core order is increasingly eroding...  you know, our students will, by the way, come from a different generation.  I mean, many of them have only, they don’t even remember Obama.  They only remember Trump, really.  Because they are young, right? I mean, they were maybe early teenagers when Trump was elected the first time.  So, they, you know, it's an interesting constituency there.  And so, you need to, you know, it's, you can be idealistic as much as you want, but you need to make the case persuasively that these public goods, namely rule-based international world order, multilateral security, was not there just as an annex.  It was there because what happened before was total war, tyranny and poverty.  And you need to make the case very persuasive.  One last little thing that intellectually I would like to say, I come from a school that, believe it or not, is called the Copenhagen School of Security Studies.  That's where I did my PhD.  And the Copenhagen School is, I'm not by any means, I mean, the chair of my PhD supervision will probably be horrified to hear that, you know...  

Hagen: Say it.  

Fabrizio: Well, look, I cannot say that I created the School of Transnational Governance thanks to what I, because maybe he will then want to see, look, what did you actually do? Because I need to understand how much of my theory was really got into you.  But the idea with the Copenhagen School was very eclectic at the level of agency of security actors.  It was about securitizing agency and saying that those who speak security into existence in front of an audience are effectively making security policy.  And I think, you know, that is an inherently transnational concept for me, because that means that if a company, and of course now we have these huge tech companies that, I mean, they are security actors, because the moment that they can sell satellites to Ukraine or not, they become security actors.  So that's, you know, that's a given.  And similarly, they are transboundary.   They don't bother to, with the concept of national security, if anything, they are constrained by it and they want to move out the bounds of national security.  So, what I tried to say is that paradoxically, the transnational discourse, yes, was born indirectly out of a political reality, but I would argue its urgency and necessity is more needed than ever because the underlying issues are transnational.  It's not me deciding that they are, they just are transnational. 

Hagen: And maybe you mentioned the African input, but you also mentioned it's transnational beyond Europe.  How are you weaving in Asian, you know, the East Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Latin American perspectives? Do you go global?  

Fabrizio: Yeah, we go global. Look, I can tell it in a practical way about the programs that we have had. That's probably less interesting.  But what I can say is that we have had a long-standing collaboration with China and they have, for the past many years, sent us many students here and they are very keen.  Believe it or not, they are very keen of us to create a center in China and we tell them, guys, I don't think this is going to happen, but they would like that we do a transnational governance center in Guangdong, which is the southern part of China, the one very open to business actually, you know, Huawei is there and the rest of it.  I don't think we're going to do it, but this to show that I think China is ironically more open to this language than say the United States, to take on example.  And the same, I would say, for some other East Asian, particularly countries, we have good collaborations in South Korea and in Japan.  Latin America, here is where the institution of the EUI is eclectic in that way, because of course the fact that we have a very strong Spanish speaking faculty meant that we are extremely visible in Latin America.  We have, without doing any particular PR, students, practitioners coming in from particularly Argentina, we have a huge Argentinian constituency, and we have had a number of programs running in   Latin America, particularly about public health.  Believe it or not, we had a public health program done in Colombia for a couple of years.  So, the scope is truly global.  We are not Eurocentric because the debate about Eurocentrism is very deeply felt in an institution like this.  So, we are really trying to walk the walk to the extent possible.  And that also means, as you were asking before about the African case, we really try to co-design, co-create these programs together with faculty and practitioners from the relevant constituencies and countries.  

Hagen: Congratulations. These are great ideas.  So, you will grow from 320 to...  This is a growth program; it sounds like it. 

Fabrizio: It's growing, but I think at some point we’ll need to cap it.   So, we are consolidating now, I think.  

Hagen: Okay, well, you've reached flying height there.  That's what it sounds like.   In the Chinese case, I remember reading Gilman’s work and also talking to him.  There is, of course, they have their own normative idea.  It may be summarized with the "All Under Heaven" theory that, you know, Nils Gilman is also a big fan of.  How do you deal with normative clashes?  

Fabrizio: Well, let me put it this way.  Europe is in a constant phase of introspection about different worldviews and how they relate to ours.  I think we are coming to terms with the reality that as a continent and as a geopolitical actor, if we ever have been one, we have put all our eggs into the regulation basket.   I mean, we have claimed to be a regulatory power, but we are realizing that this regulatory power now might have run its course or it might run out of steam.  And the reason I'm saying this is that I don’t fundamentally, I don't think that a player like China, which is, yes, a competitor, maybe even, you know, an antagonistic power, but I think they are fundamentally not out to get us in a zero-sum game.  I mean, if they can find areas of convergence, they will try to find areas of convergence.  And I fear that our European approach to regulation, particularly, especially when it comes to big tech, but more broadly, could have helped us at some point in time, but now it is almost doing more harm than good.  One of my colleagues here, and I'm going to do a little advertising, not for me, but for a colleague from the law department, just published last week or maybe even this week, a small manifesto called something like the Constitution of Innovation. And I have some issues with it because if you criticize too much, there is there is always of throwing out the baby with the bathwater and saying all that Europe is doing is wrong.  But there are a number of very persuasive arguments and numbers.  He has coauthored that we together with one of our other professors who is a former Nobel Prize winner for economics, that Europe has been literally regulating itself into irrelevance.  And that our unwillingness to make the most of our single market and trade power has hampered our ability to be taken seriously by an actor like China, for example.  Never mind the United States.  We can speak for a long time about what’s happening now with Trump and the rest of it.  But this is to some extent self-inflicted because we designed the system that was to some extent fair weather.  I mean, everything is fine until the weather, you know, until everybody is getting along.   The moment somebody doesn't get along anymore, which is what Trump is showing it, the system doesn't work anymore.  

Hagen: I see the point. And I'd love to see this manifesto.  I haven't read it yet.  But I'm probably sure that human rights are not on the list. 

Fabrizio: Of the manifesto? I guess not.  

Hagen: No, because I would like to ask you a question about, you know, when you say regulating, and trade and governance crisis… Well, if one of the European ideas is that you need to have human rights compliance across the value chain. 

Fabrizio: Yeah.  

Hagen: Is this an issue?   

Fabrizio: No, and don't get me wrong. That's what I mean.  I think, you know, there is a lot there that needs to be salvaged because it’s really not only a policy issue, it’s a civilizational one.  It's something that we should really hold dear as what we have brought to the world.  I also do feel if you look at hot spots around the world, when you think human rights, especially, that all too often, our approach has been plagued by double standards about how to implement and I know it's easy to in Italian, we have this expression, we’re "shooting at the Red Cross" because it’s like you can always criticize the EU and that's the easy thing to do.  I think it's fair to say that, you know, if you look at our human rights policy, take also the China case, I'm not going to get into Gaza or even more complicated examples.  I mean, what do we have to show for as Europeans?   I mean, we are trading but not selling weapons or are we selling material that is dual use and...  Maybe it's inherent to the way in which the decision making of the EU is done.  It is by consensus. It is a least common denominator.  You have to give everything, something to everybody.  So, I would personally say we should really hold dear to whatever good we had on human rights and even democracy   promotion for that matter.   But our record is not exactly super clean when we go on the field, right?  

Hagen: I agree. I can imagine that this leads   difficult conversations.   And also, it probably flips a little bit the idea that you talked about earlier, or maybe not.  I'm wondering whether challenges you said we’re not Eurocentric, but I can imagine that when you're out there talking to someone and you insist on human rights and democracy that Europe holds...that’s to be Eurocentric.  

Fabrizio: Yeah, yeah. No, I think that is the default.   That is the default claim and risk and, and, you know, we have to take it at face value.  I mean, we are not a spokesperson, spoke-institution for the institutions and that is a great privilege.  We can speak critically to the institutions and about the institutions.  But of course, you know, when we speak about our institutions of governance and about what constitutes good governance to come back to your very first question, right?  That was, of course, shaped for good and bad by the European experience.  And I think the best we can do is, and I can say this more concretely about the African case because, you know, I've been closer to that in developing it here.  We have to be very humble and basically say, yes, guys, we come with an experience that has a lot of value, but we have also made very grave mistakes from which hopefully we can all learn from.  And, you know, the way I'm presenting it to you is quite self-critical on purpose, you know, earlier this morning, actually, I gave a class online to 300 Ukrainian civil servants in Kyiv.  And it was about the EU accession process and I would have loved to tell them, I would have loved to tell them the EU accession process is an inherently technical design where you are judged based on merits, based on reforms and based on objective criteria for things like human rights, the rule of law, independence of the judiciary...  And, you know, I didn't have it in me to say that to a country that is struggling for its own survival without also saying guys, be aware, this is also an inherently political process where you might be confronted with double standards about what is happening in a country like where I am in Italy, about corruption.  Who am I to tell you what is right or   wrong about corruption?  And you will have to play the game.   So, you know, at some level, we need to also    recognize that if we are met with skepticism, it's probably justified.  

Hagen: Thank you.  I think maybe to wrap it up a little bit now, tell me, I mean, the classic question.  I mean, this is not an interview but, where is it in five years?  

Fabrizio: Do you ask that to all your guests?  

Hagen: No, I just came up with it.  

Fabrizio: You should do like a signature question.  

Hagen: I should do a little signature question at the end, but then all my guests are a little different.  I would like to see because in your case, you need to educate people.   That's why I'm asking you for a very fast changing world.  

Fabrizio: Yes.  

Hagen: I mean, how do you keep up? And so, hopefully, I mean, if I see you in five years, you have consolidated programs in China, your Spanish special relationship has flourished.  You have a founded center in Africa and funding in Europe keeps going and you are self-sufficient. 

Fabrizio: Yeah, that will be awesome.  That will be a stable case. Yes.  So that would be the best case.  It would be, if everything goes as it has so far.  But I think strategically, this is where we are headed.  And I can tell you because we have just finished a strategy for the next five years.  The best way we can secure the gains and the achievements of the past five years is to anchor them with local actors in every environment we are operating in.  That goes anywhere from creating dual degrees with likeminded partners in countries that we consider strategic.  It goes to really maximizing the European dimension because this is our comparative advantage here.  And I think, you know, we don't have the luxury as an institute to turn our back on Europe, so we need to double down on Europe.  So, for us, you know, and as you could hear from me, this is not about being the cheerleader of the European institutions.  We are very critical when it's warranted to European institutions.  But for us, this is our interlocutor.  So, we have to rely on them.  And of course, this is banal, but I guess this is what I do from waking up in the morning, is really try to be excellent at every possible level in what we actually deliver.  And you cannot just take that for granted.  You have to work on it every single day.  

Hagen: That's a good mission to have, Fabrizio.  Now you made me think of a final signature question, but I really like one from another podcast that I listened to, which is In Our Time from the BBC.  And there, Melvin Bragg is the one who always asks the question.  He always asks, is there anything you’d like to talk about that we haven't mentioned?  

Fabrizio: Well, then I should have prepared that that was the signature question.  We covered in general a lot of ground.  One thing that I feel I want to say is that being in Florence, we have realized that even if it's outside our comfort zone, we need to try to bring in the world of the arts in the way we work here.  So, this is a little bit away from anything we have discussed so far, but we are in Florence.  And believe it or not, the window I’m looking out from now down, there is the courtyard where Michelangelo learned how to sculpt when he was a teenager.  So, we cannot ignore that.  And I can tell you in this age of artificial intelligence, hyper, hyper technological advancement and professionalization of that, to somehow bring in the humanities, to bring in that dimension, even though it's, as I said, outside our comfort zone, is something we are striving to do, because it's important.  And maybe when you ask me what do we want to do the next five years, well, Lord knows where artificial intelligence will be in five years.  Since I cannot know that, well, we can maybe work on what we do know, which is the amazing human heritage, not artificial, but human intelligence that we have in a place like this.  

Hagen: You see, that was a great question to ask.  Thank you so much. Bring humanism and the human capital back in here.  Fabrizio, thank you for being with us at Planetary Choices and all the best for your mission.  

Fabrizio: Thanks so much, Hagen, it was a pleasure.     

Further Readings:

European University Institute. 2026. “Young African Leaders Programme.” School of Transnational Governance. https://www.eui.eu/en/academic-units/school-of-transnational-governance/stg-fellowships/young-african-leaders

Garicano, Luis, Bengt Holmström, and Nicolas Petit. 2025 The Constitution of Innovation: A New European Renaissance.  https://constitutionofinnovation.eu/

Blake, Jonathan, and Nils Gilman. 2024. Children of a Modest Star. Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.  

Gilman, Nils. 2025.“Planetarity and the Future of Diplomacy.” Small Precaution. https://nilsgilman.substack.com/p/planetarity-and-the-future-of-diplomacy

Giuashvili, Tinatin, and Fabrizio Tassinari. 2024. Beyond Geopolitical Europe. STG Policy Brief No. 2024/1. Florence: European University Institute, School of Transnational Governance.  https://hdl.handle.net/1814/76389

Tassinari, Fabrizio. 2022. The Pursuit of Governance: Nordic Dispatches on a New Middle Way. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing.

Tassinari, Fabrizio. 2009. Why Europe Fears Its Neighbors. 1st ed. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. https://doi.org/10.5040/978216035633

Tassinari, Fabrizio, and Nathalie Tocci Milanese, eds. 2024. An Enlarged Europe as a Civilization of Consent: Can Europe Be a Laboratory for a New Planetary Politics? STG Policy Brief. Florence: European University Institute, School of Transnational Governance and Berggruen Institute.  https://hdl.handle.net/1814/76822

U.S. Department of State. 2026. “Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI)”. https://yali.state.gov/