New Publication: Twenty years of Malta’s EU membership : the impact on Maltese environmental NGOs

 Briguglio, Michael (2024). Twenty years of Malta’s EU membership : the impact on Maltese environmental NGOs. 20 Years of EU Membership Paper Series, 3-16. 

In this study, I analyse the impact of EU accession on Maltese Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGOs), twenty years after Malta, the smallest EU-member state, joined the Union in 2004. In the run-up to EU accession, the environment was often seen as an area which would benefit from Malta’s EU membership, especially since Malta had a lack of environmental legislation and enforcement. Not surprisingly, Environmental NGOs (ENGOs) supported Malta’s EU accession. ENGOs are major protagonists in environmental politics in Malta. Their activism covers different areas, though some issues - most notably land development, and hunting of birds - are more visible and contentious in the public sphere. Environmental protest is also one of the most common types of protest in Malta.

I investigate the impacts of Malta’s European Union (EU) accession on Environmental NGOs (ENGOs) through a sociological perspective, following two decades of Malta’s accession. For this purpose, the activism of ENGOs in relation to Malta’s EU accession was analysed, through political process theory and a social constructionist approach which engaged with the interpretations of the same ENGOs on the issue under analysis. For this purpose, primary data was collected through elite interviews with representatives from Malta’s major ENGOs. The main research question of this study is “how do ENGOs interpret the impacts of the EU, 20 years after Malta’s accession?” 

The study is a follow-up of a similar study I had published following ten years of Malta’s EU membership. It forms part of the '20 Years of EU membership' paper series published by the Institute for European Studies, University of Malta. 

Download: https://www.um.edu.mt/media/um/docs/events/20yearseumembers/MichaelBriguglio.pdf

Book Review: Turkish Politics and ‘the People’ – Mass Mobilisation and Populism, written by Spyros A. Sofos

The latest edition of academic journal Protest includes the following book review which I have written.

Briguglio, M. (2024). Turkish Politics and ‘the People’ – Mass Mobilisation and Populism, written by Spyros A. Sofos. Protest, 4(1), 103-106. https://doi.org/10.1163/2667372X-bja10055

Link:

https://brill.com/view/journals/prot/4/1/article-p103_008.xml

UM OAR: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/120225

New Publication: The Daphne Protests at the end of 2019. A Chronology - Michael Briguglio

My latest peer-reviewed article, 'The Daphne Protests at the end of 2019 - A Chronology' has just been published in the Social Conflict Yearbook 2019, by the Observatory of Social Conflict, University of Barcelona.

The article (in English) may be accessed and downloaded from this link:

Las protestas por el asesinato de Daphne Caruana. Una cronología | Briguglio | Anuario del Conflicto Social (ub.edu)

Abstract: This article deals with the escalation of protests in Malta concerning the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia at the end of 2019. The well attended protests continued the trend of civil society activism since the murder of the journalist in 2017. They were characterised by the creation of a broad coalition of social movement organisations, and the eventual resignation of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. 

Keywords: Malta, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Civil Society, Joseph Muscat, Social Movements, Protest

Reference: Briguglio, Michael (2020): The Daphne Protests at the end of 2019 - A Chronology. In: Social Conflict Year Book. Observatory of Social Conflict: Barcelona DOI: 10.1344/ACS2020.10.11

My full list of academic publications can be accessed here:

Michael Briguglio's Blog: My sociological publications (mikes-beat.blogspot.com)

Norm Rejection is 25 - All releases are now available online

Norm Rejection is 25 years old! Our CDs are now freely accessible online.  We also added #MaltaNotForSale as a stand-alone. 

Links:

Malta Not For Sale (Single - 2000): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnThAPzsxpI

The Radical Underground (Album - 2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4kvv2q13nI

Belligerent (EP - 2011):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ds5i19V2yU

0002 (Album - 2000):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x7wEuCQrk0

Deconform (Album - 1998):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6TpoHuTYHg

Subtly Mesmerized? (EP - 1994):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FpIzfji9gE

Enjoy and share!

Yours in Metal,

Michael Briguglio, Sean Vukovic, Wil Pace, Jo Kerr, Rex Grech Santucci, Andrew Martin (RIP)

My sociological publications

A list of my sociological peer-reviewed publications may be accessed from this link.

Open Access publications are available from the following links (click on them for access):

Academia
ResearchGate
Open Access Repository - University of Malta

Google Scholar

For any information regarding my publications, kindly contact me via this link.

Checking Malta’s Powerful Prime Minster through Constitutional Reforms - Michael Briguglio

My article 'Checking Malta’s Powerful Prime Minster through Constitutional Reforms'.  has been published in ConstitutionNet. 

You can read the article here. 

This is a follow up of my previous article on the matter published in 2017.  

ConstitutionNet is project created to support legislators, constitutional lawyers and other constitutional practitioners in finding useful and relevant information, sharing knowledge and building a community of best practice. ConstitutionNet is an International IDEA (an IGO headquartered in Sweden) project developed and maintained with generous support from the Government of Norway.
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) is an intergovernmental organization that supports sustainable democracy worldwide. Its mission is to support sustainable democratic change by providing comparative knowledge, and assisting in democratic reform, and influencing policies and politics.

New Publication on Discourse Analysis

My latest paper, WASP (Write a Scientific Paper): Discourse Analysis has been published in Early Human Development, a peer-reviewed journal published by Elsevier (Science Direct).

The paper argues that discourse analysis enables the identification of what social actors say and do but also of what they represent in terms of values and motivation Such an analysis can also unearth ideological representations which legitimize the reproduction of social structures, irrespective of whether such representations reflect some objective reality or not. In their turn, such structures are contingent and incomplete, and are subject to changes. Discourse analysis examines their political and historical construction and functioning. What this approach does is help us understand how certain facts and non-facts make it to the political agenda whilst others do not, and how they are interpreted within the public sphere.

DOI: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2019.03.014

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378378219301835?via%3Dihub

Publication of paper on civil society perspectives on green jobs in sustainable energy: The case of European Malta

My co-authored research article with Maria Brown 'Civil society perspectives on green jobs in sustainable energy: The case of European Malta ' has been published in peer-reviewed journal Energy & Environment (SAGE). 

The objective of this paper is to analyse the perspectives of civil society actors in Malta about the country’s sustainable energy policy and its impact on green jobs. Perspectives of 11 civil society actors comprising employers, trade unions and non-governmental organisations are analysed to provide a broad reflexive analysis of the policy process in question. Findings illuminate a broad consensus within civil society that the policymaking process in the field of sustainable energy should incorporate different voices from civil society – such as employers, trade unions and environmental non-governmental organisations – apart from experts in energy, economics and other areas. Indeed, this study’s findings include civil society’s reviews on how commercial viability, workers’ rights, environmental protection and sustainability interact with and within the sustainable energy sector and related green jobs. Nonetheless, this study signals that within Maltese civil society, sharing of knowledge and good practice and effort coordination lack. Different interests and sectarianism testify to inconsistently interacting and competing human local networks. This broadens the discourse on effective sustainable energy policy and creation of related green jobs, also making it more complex. Indeed, the direction of such discourse bears potential for sporadic development. Whilst challenging vertical trajectories, institutionally centred and technical transitions in the area of environmental sustainability, the primary data gained from this study highlight need for policy to address the identified challenges through projects, funding and incentives that foster coordination between different types of civil society organisations.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/0958305X18813685

Publication of paper on Digital Activism, Physical Activism and Malta's Front Harsien ODZ

My research article 'Digital Activism, Physical Activism - Malta's Front Harsien ODZ' has been published in peer-reviewed journal Contention - The Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Protest. 

This article analyzes the interaction between the digital (online) and physical (offline) activism of Front Harsien ODZ, a Maltese environmental movement organization. It looks into how Front activists perceive these forms of activism and verifies how important each form is to the organization. Consequently, the research presented herein is operationalized through interviews with Front activists and through participant observation from an insider’s point of view. This article concludes that activists within Front Harsien ODZ feel that they are part of a social network. The organization’s recruitment, mobilization and activism techniques are at once digital and physical. Most Front activists were already part of preexisting social networks before joining the Front, and the new Front network made good use of Malta’s political opportunity structures, including the Zonqor controversy; Malta’s small size; and the country’s vibrant media landscape.

Link: https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/contention/6/1/cont060104.xml

Panama Papers & Malta: In the European Atlas of Democratic Deficit

My article 'Panama Papers and Malta' has been published in the European Atlas of Democratic Deficit. The article discusses the implications of this issue on the 2017 general election and was written before the brutal murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The Atlas may be downloaded from this link:  

https://www.liberalforum.eu/publications/european-atlas-of-democratic-deficit/

Reference: Briguglio, Michael (2017): Panama Papers and Malta. In M. Hodun (Ed.): European Atlas of Democratic Deficit. (Poland: European Liberal Forum), pp.64-67.