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Selected values
Rural areas and the geography of discontent
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Agnieszka Kulesa
Lead Social Sciences Researcher
Dr Agnieszka Kulesa is the Lead Social Sciences Researcher at CASE. She supports business development and oversees and contributes to research and analytical projects. Having joined CASE in 2018 as an economist, she served as Vice-President of the Management Board from 2021 to 2024. Agnieszka has authored or co-authored numerous publications, including peer-reviewed articles and reports for European institutions such as the European Commission (EC), the European Parliament (EP), the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).
Articles from this author:
- Migrant workers coming to Poland from other European Union member states. Barriers, difficulties, and possible courses of action
- Capacity building for local and regional authorities in the light of the Ukraine Facility (Pillar III)
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Exploring the Entrepreneurial Potential of Belarusian Migrants in the EU
This Working Paper aims to deepen the understanding of Belarusian migration to the EU, with a particular focus on entrepreneurship among Belarusian migrants.
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Martyna Gliniecka
Senior Social Sciences Researcher
Dr Martyna Gliniecka is a Senior Social Sciences Researcher at the CASE - Center for Social and Economic Research. At CASE, she specialises in social research and policy projects, with a focus on qualitative research, participatory methods, and equality, diversity and inclusion. She previously led and participated in research projects in the Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University, aiming to better young people’s lives and their resilience in the domains of technology and health. She specialises in qualitative research methods, participatory methodologies, and digital research (e.g., digital ethnography). She is especially interested in online communities and their role in the growing domain of youth digital health.
Articles from this author:
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Fact or Fiction? Critical thinking and digital resilience among young people, parents and teachers in Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania
The Fact or Fiction report summarises insights from consultations with 95 young people and 30 parents and teachers across Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. It explores how adolescents use the Internet, which risks they identify, how they assess their critical thinking skills, and what support they need.
- Fact or Fiction Workshop Manual for Developing Digital Resilience and Critical Thinking in Youth
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Divisions of Powers. Multi-level Governance Structures in Armenia and Azerbaijan
This publication provides an overview of the institutional decentralisation levels in Armenia and Azerbaijan. Each chapter outlines the legal foundations of the governance structures in each country and describes how powers and responsibilities are distributed across different tiers of government.
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Fact or Fiction? Critical thinking and digital resilience among young people, parents and teachers in Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania
This study applies a rural-urban lens to the outcomes of recent national and subnational elections of European Union (EU) Member States, with the aim of analysing Eurosceptic (anti-EU values) voting patterns and identifying possible explanations for voter discontent in rural areas.
Findings show high Eurosceptic voting in many rural areas across the EU. At national election level, this rural-urban trend is most marked in Member States that are the most Eurosceptic overall. In Italy, for instance, the largest share of support for anti-EU parties comes from rural areas. In Poland and Hungary, Eurosceptic support is primarily driven by rural areas. However, rural Euroscepticism also occurs in less Eurosceptic countries: in the Netherlands, while most regions did not reach a 25% vote threshold for anti-EU parties, the country’s only rural region, Zeeuwsch-Vlaanderen, reached a 33% vote share. Similarly, in countries such as Portugal, Croatia and Estonia, the one or few Eurosceptic regions are all predominantly rural.
The study identifies electoral patterns in anti-EU voting, which demonstrate how rural areas can be central to the success of Eurosceptic parties at both national and subnational level. Overall, these findings underscore the potential repercussions for the EU in neglecting rural areas. They validate institutional actors’ concerns in relation to ongoing initiatives targeting the strengthening of rural areas (such as long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas 2040) and underscore their urgency, particularly in a year of important upcoming elections across different levels of administrative bodies in Europe. More broadly, the study’s conclusions provide a useful basis to reflect and debate the rural dimension of Eurosceptic and anti-EU sentiment, including origins and consequences, which impact not only the well-being of EU citizens, but the values and future of the EU itself. The study concludes with a series of questions for further reflection by European Committee of the Region members and the wider stakeholder community.