Dr Charlotte Galpin

Dr Charlotte Galpin

Department of Political Science and International Studies
Associate Professor in German and European Politics

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 6928
Email
c.a.galpin@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
POLSIS - School of Government
Muirhead Tower
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Charlotte Galpin is Associate Professor in German and European Politics. Her research lies at the intersection of political science, sociology and media and communication studies, with a particular interest in the European public sphere, European and national identities, and democracy and citizenship. More recently, she is analysing masculinities and gendered patterns of inclusion/exclusion in national and European public debates, including online and media abuse of women and LGBTQ+ people. She has a particular area focus on the UK and Germany.

Qualifications

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
  • PGCHE Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (Birmingham)
  • PhD Political Science and International Studies (Birmingham)
  • MA European Integration (Birmingham)
  • BA (Hons) French and German Studies (Warwick)

Biography

Charlotte Galpin joined the department in May 2017 and became Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in August 2021. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Copenhagen and a teaching fellow at the University of Bath. She completed her PhD at the Institute for German Studies, POLSIS, in 2014.

In autumn term 2019/20 she held the Alfred Grosser Visiting Professorship in Civil Society Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She has also been a visiting researcher at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science at the Free University Berlin, and the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies at the University of Wrocław, Poland.

Dr Galpin has presented her research internationally and has provided analysis of German politics for a number of news outlets, including Associated Press, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio West Midlands, Deutsche Welle, Business Insider UK, the i newspaper, and the Huffington Post. She has also given evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee and House of Lords Committee on Communication and Digital.

She speaks German (advanced), French (advanced), Polish (intermediate), and Danish (beginner). 

Teaching

Dr Galpin is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and hold a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE). She also holds a SEDA Learning, Teaching and Assessing Award (2020).

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Galpin is interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas:

  • National and European Identity
  • European Public Sphere
  • Euroscepticism
  • The role of Germany and/or Britain in Europe
  • Brexit
  • Media representation including social media
  • Gender, feminist and queer approaches to the above

Research

Dr Galpin's research focuses on a number of areas:

  • The European public sphere, particularly media representation and the impact of social media
  • European and national identities and their relationship to EU citizenship, legitimacy and transnational democracy
  • Masculinities and gendered patterns of inclusion/exclusion in the public sphere
  • Online and media abuse of women, LGBTQ+ and racialised people and the impact on democracy and citizenship
  • Intersectional feminist theory and critical feminist methodologies

She has a particular area focus on Germany and the UK.

Funded projects

Dr Galpin has worked on a number of funded research projects. 

  • She is currently working on her second monograph, provisionally entitled ‘‘Gendering Europe: British national identity from EEC accession to EU secession”. This project was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship between September 2022 and September 2023.
  • She was Co-Investigator on the major research project ‘Post-Socialist Britain: Memory, Representation and Political Identity amongst German and Polish Immigrants in the UK’, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (2021-24). The PI by Professor Sara Jones (Modern Languages), and the second CI is Dr Jenny Wüstenberg (Nottingham Trent). The project explores the connection between collective memory and political identity in the process of migration, focusing specifically on two countries with experience of state socialist rule, Germany and Poland. The project will also have a strong impact dimension, working with policy-makers, immigrant communities, arts communities, and professional and community associations.  
  • She was a Co-Investigator on ‘Futures of German Diasporas’ (2022-23), an interdisciplinary visiting scholar programme funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
  • She was the Principle Investigator on the project ‘At the digital margins? Researching and communicating marginalisation in online political engagement’ (Spring 2022), funded by Research England’s QR Enhancing Research and Knowledge Exchange Funding Programme.

Other activities

The Post-Truth Politics research network ran the Post-Truth Politics Podcast. Dr Galpin has recently hosted two episodes, the first of which focuses on intersectional approaches to post-truth in conversation with Dr Muireann O’Dwyer.

Publications

Monographs 

Galpin, C. (2017), The Euro Crisis and European Identities: Political and Media Discourse in Germany, Ireland and Poland (New Perspectives in German Political Studies), Palgrave Macmillan

Edited Books 

(co-edited with Conrad, M., Hálfdánarson, G., Michailidou, A., & Pyrhönen, N.), Europe in the Age of Post-Truth Politics - Populism, Disinformation and the Public Sphere (Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology), Palgrave Macmillan (2022)

Journal articles

Galpin, C., Gwenffrewi, G. & Stokoe, A. (2023). ‘Transfeminist Perspectives: Beyond Cisnormative Understandings of the Digital Public Sphere’. European Journal of Women’s Studies, Issue 4, Open Forum (OpenAccess)

Galpin, C. & Vernon, P. (2023). ‘Post-Truth Politics as Discursive Violence: Online Abuse, Bordering and the Figure of ‘The Expert’’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations (2023) (Open Access)

Galpin (2023). ‘Anglo-British Exceptionalisms and the European ‘Other’: White Masculinities in Discourses of British National Identity during Brexit’, International Feminist Journal of Politics (Open Access)

Galpin, C. (2022), ‘At the digital margins? A theoretical examination of social media engagement using intersectional feminism’, Politics and Governance, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2022) (OpenAccess)

Galpin, C. (2022), ‘Contesting Brexit Masculinities: Pro-European Activists and Feminist EU Citizenship’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 301-318 (Open Access)

Brändle, V. K., Galpin, C. & Trenz, H.J. (2022), ‘Brexit as ‘Politics of Division’: Social Media Campaigning After the Referendum’, Social Movement Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1-2, 234-253 (Open Access)

Galpin, C. (2020), ‘Perceptions of German leadership: Irish national identity and Germany as a ‘significant other’ during the Euro crisis’, German Politics and Society, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 7-24 

Galpin, C. & Trenz, H.-J. (2019) In the Shadow of Brexit: The 2019 European Parliament Elections as First-Order Polity Elections? The Political Quarterly, Vol. 90, No. 4, pp. 664-671. 

Galpin, C. & Trenz, H.J. (2019) ‘Participatory Populism: Online Discussion Forums on Mainstream News Sites During the 2014 European Parliament Election’, Journalism Practice, Vol. 13, No. 7 

Galpin, C. & Trenz, H.J. (2019), ‘Converging towards Euroscepticism? Negativity in News Coverage During the 2014 European Parliament Elections in Germany and the UK’. European Politics and Society, Vol. 20 (3), pp. 260-276

Brändle, V. K., Galpin, C. & Trenz, H.J. (2018), ‘Marching for Europe? Enacting European Citizenship as Justice During Brexit’, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 22, No. 8, pp. 810-828 

Galpin, C. & Trenz, H.J. (2018)‚ ‘Die Euroskeptizismus Spirale: EU-Berichterstattung und Medien-Negativität (The Spiral of Euroscepticism: EU News and Media Negativity)‘, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie (Austrian Journal of Sociology), Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 147-172

Bijsmans, P., Galpin, C. & Leruth, B. (2018). ‘Brexit’ in Transnational Perspective: An Analysis of Newspapers in France, Germany and the Netherlands.Comparative European Politics, Vol. 16, No. 5, pp. 825-842 

Adler-Nissen, R., Galpin, C. & Rosamond, B. (2017). ‘Performing Brexit: How a Post-Brexit World is Imagined Outside the UK, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 19, No. 3

Galpin, C. (2017), ‘Chronology: The European Union in 2016’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Annual Review

Galpin, C. (2016), ‘Chronology: The European Union in 2015’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 54, Annual Review, pp. 218-224

Galpin, C. (2015), ‘Has Germany Fallen Out of Love With Europe? The Eurozone Crisis and the Normalisation of Germany’s European Identity’, German Politics and Society, Vol. 33, No. 1/2 (Spring/Summer 2015) 

Galpin, C. (2015), ‘Chronology: The European Union in 2014’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 53, Annual Review, pp. 230-236 

Book Chapters 

Galpin, C. (2022) ‘Brexit and Social Movements’ in della Porta, McAdam & Snow (eds), The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, 2nd edition 

Galpin, C. & Eckert, C. (2022), ‘Theresa May’s Leadership in Brexit Negotiations: Self-Representation and Media Evaluations’ In Müller, Henriette & Tömmel, Ingeborg (eds), Women and Leadership in the European Union, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 213-230 

Galpin, C. (2021), ‘Britain and the European Union’ in Jones, Bill, Norton, Philip and Hertner, Isabelle (eds), Politics UK,10th edition, Routledge 

Galpin, C. & Trenz, H. J.  (2018), ‘The Spiral of Euroscepticism: Media Negativity, Framing and Opposition to the EU’ in: Caiani, Manuela and Guerra, Simona, Communicating Europe, Contesting Europe: European Democracy, the Media and New Eurosceptic and Critical Movements in Time of Crisis, Palgrave Macmillan: Houndsmills 

Working Papers 

Galpin, C. and Trenz, H.J. (2018), “Rethinking First- and Second-Order Elections Media Negativity and Polity Contestation during the 2014 European Parliament Elections in Germany and the UK”, ARENA Working Paper 3/2018, ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, available online at http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/publications/arena-working-papers/2018/wp-3-18.pdf 

Policy Briefs

(Galpin, C. & Vernon, P.), ‘Post-truth politics as online abuse: how gender, race, and sexuality shape perceptions of the expert’, May 2023

(Galpin, C., Jones, S., Kogut, N. & Rohe, M.), ‘Report: Support for Displaced Ukrainians in the UK - History and Stereotypes’, March 2023

Blogs

Galpin, C. & Vernon, Patrick (2023). 'Laurence Fox, misogyny, and the chains of post-truth politics'. Birmingham Perspectives. 17 October 2023

Gwenffrewi, G. Stokoe, A.K. and Galpin C. (2022). ‘Trans Day of Visibility 2022: Visibility with a Price’, College of Social Sciences Blog, University of Birmingham. 31 March 2022

Galpin, C. & Jones, S. (2022), ‘Ukraine’s Refugees & Racialised Borders’, Byline Times, 4 March 2022

Galpin, C. & Gwenffrewi, G. (2022), ‘Media Transphobia and Democratic Inequality’, Social Sciences Birmingham, 11th February 2022

Galpin, C. & Jones, S. (2021) ‘Germany enters a new era – but how much will change for inner German unity?’, Perspectives, 14th December 2021

Galpin, C. & Rohe, M. (2021), ‘German election: continuing popularity of far-right AfD has roots in east-west divide’, The Conversation, 23rd September 2021

Yakovlev, Mikhail (2021), ‘Cancel Culture Series: Interview with Charlotte Galpin’, Media Diversity Institute, 6th August 2021

Galpin, Charlotte (2020), ‘Post-Truth, Populism and Endometriosis: What Can We Learn From Women Who Are Not Believed?’ Discover Society, 3rd June 2020

Bloom, Tendayi, Galpin, Charlotte & Weckesser, Annalise (2020), ‘Focus: Interrogating a ‘Woman’s Curse’ – What Endometriosis Tells Us About Politics and Society’, Discover Society, 3rd June 2020

Galpin, Charlotte (2018), ‘Video must not kill the female stars of academic debate’, Times Higher Education, November 8th 2018

Galpin, Charlotte (2018), ‘Women have been excluded from the Brexit debate’, UK in a Changing Europe, 8th October 2018

Brändle, Verena K., Galpin, Charlotte, Trenz, Hans-Jörg (2018) ‘On the Frontline: Brexit as Bereavement’, Discover Society, 9th January 2018

Galpin, Charlotte (2017), ‘The German election and the UK’s new irrelevance’, Progressive Review, Institute for Public Policy Research, 7th November 2017

Galpin, Charlotte (2017), ‘The German election: What does it mean for Europe?’ E-International Relations, 4th October 2017

Brändle, Verena K., Galpin, Charlotte, Trenz, Hans-Jörg (2017), ‘The Tragedy of Brexit: Pro-European Mobilisation After the Referendum’, The Sociological Review Blog, 28th July 2017

Galpin, Charlotte (2017), ‘If you think David Davis has U-turned on ID cards, think again’, The Conversation, 6th July 2017

Galpin, Charlotte (2016), ‘Boris Johnson is damaging Germany’s goodwill towards the UK’, LSE BrexitVote, 13th October 2016

Galpin, Charlotte (2016), ‘Project Fear: How the negativity of the referendum campaign undermines democracy’,LSE BrexitVote, 13th June 2016

Galpin, Charlotte (2011), ‘Merkel's defeat in Hamburg – how important are local elections for national coalitions?’ Birmingham Brief, 24th February 2011

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

  • EU and Brexit debates
  • Euroscepticism, national identity
  • EU/European Court of Human Rights/Brexit in relation to gender and LGBTQ+ rights
  • News and social media in relation to representation, democracy, and political engagement
  • Post-truth/disinformation
  • Online and media abuse of women, LGBTQ+ and racialised people

Languages and other information

Charlotte Galpin also speaks German (advanced), French (advanced), Polish (intermediate), and Danish (beginner). 

Media experience

Charlotte Galpin has provided analysis of German politics for a number of news outlets, including BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio West Midlands, Associated Press, Deutsche Welle, Business Insider UK, the i newspaper and the Huffington Post. 

Expertise

  • Media representation and social media policy
  • Brexit and gender inequality

Dr Galpin has provided oral and written evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee and House of Lords Committee on Communications and Digital.