Internship: “Migration, integration of vulnerable groups, radicalisation, fundamental rights in the context of counter-terrorism”

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Mara Fallini MA Placement Report University of Groningen, MA IRIO Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), Sofia, Bulgaria

Internship: “Migration, integration

of vulnerable groups, radicalisation,

fundamental rights in the context of

counter-terrorism”

Introduction

Last spring, when I started looking for the internship I needed in order to complete my Master’s Degree, the search for a job seemed like a desperate mission. I did not expect that it would take so long to find a placement nor that, in some cases, the selection procedures would be so slow and fragmented.

However, in August I was accepted as an intern in the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), a think tank based in Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria. Later on, I was contacted back by other institutes, but I decided to accept the placement in Sofia, where I started working in mid-September.

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I had never been in Bulgaria before, not even on vacation, so I came here without a precise idea of how my new life would have been. Now, more than three months have passed, I am back to my hometown for Christmas, marking the end of my experience here, and I am ready to report on these last months of my life.

Finding the Placement

As I have stated at the beginning of this report, finding a placement was a process that, at the beginning, looked like a complicated mission.

Towards the end of last spring, probably during the first days of June, I started looking for an internship, that I had the intention to begin during the following semester, from September or October 2019. At the time I had terminated my pre-Master in International Relations (from September 2018 to February 2019) and I was about to finish my first semester of Master’s Degree. Therefore, after I passed my written exam in Advanced Theory of International Relations and after I handed in, in mid-June, my papers for two seminars (Ethics and Global Political Economy and Human Rights, Democracy and Peace) and for my Capita in International Security, I started to seriously dedicate myself to the search of a temporary job coherent with what I had studied.

First, I started looking on the career portals of the United Nations and the European Union. Despite virtually all internships offered by the UN were unpaid, I sent applications for positions within different agencies of the two organizations. Considered that I had applied for several placements, I was confident to be contacted by at least one of them within the following weeks. On the contrary, after I couple of weeks I was disappointed finding out that I had not received any response yet. I started being concerned about my prospects to find a job in my field of interest and doubting about the worth of my abilities and experience. However, speaking with my classmates, I realized that most of us were facing the same issues, namely a hardship in finding a placement. The only people who had already solved this issue, I discovered, had started looking for an internship a few months earlier. Hence, I believe that, if their time management allows it, it would be better for future students to start looking for an internship in advance.

Actually, after a couple of weeks a received a response from the Europol which, due to my interest and specialization in International Security, represented an appealing prospect for me. I had a Skype meeting with the recruiters and I was really excited. They emailed me one week later to communicate that they had the intention to hire me, but the six-month internship would start the following year. I was quite shocked by this response but, after discussing the matter with ex-students, I found out that it is quite common, for the most prominent international agencies, to schedule internships in advance. In any case, waiting one year was not really a desirable option for me. In fact, I had already finished all my exams and papers, and I just needed to write my Master Thesis and carry out an internship in order to graduate. Therefore, accepting that placement would have meant terminating everything with remarkable delay. This is why I continued searching.

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Following the advice of my placement supervisor, dr. Sportel, I started having a look at the websites of research centers and think tanks, especially in Europe. I discovered a great number of them exist, covering diverse topics and specializations within the field of International Relations. In particular, two think tanks aroused my interest: the Center for the Study of Democracy in Sofia and the International Center for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague. I sent applications to both of them.

For the Center for the Study of Democracy, the application procedure consisted of an e-mail to send, comprehensive of my studying and working history. They also required a sample of writing, because in the work ad it was specified that the placement would include a great amount of written work, especially in the form of reports. Therefore, the recruiters explicitly required such a sample in order to test both the level of English and the writing and analytical skills of candidates. Additionally, candidates were required to specify their main area of interest among the six proposed by the Center for the Study of Democracy. More than one sounded appealing to me (for example, environmental security) but, in the end, I opted for Human Rights, as it has always been one of my main focuses, including during my studies at the University of Groningen.

In their announcement, linked at on the placement portal of the University of Groningen, the CSD stated their requirements for applying interns quite clearly. They demanded excellent university credentials, to be proven with grades but not necessarily with letters of recommendation. Moreover, excellent written and analytical skills, as well as organizational skills, were deemed necessary. It was already stated that selected candidates would perform their research tasks on a laptop, therefore computer literacy was listed as one the main requirements (in particular, knowledge of spreadsheets, presentation programs, and data analysis software was demanded), together with the ability to carry out searches in databases and in the internet quickly and effectively. Finally, fluency in English was essential, and command over a second EU language was considered an advantage.

Therefore, I sent the CSD an e-mail where I showed my interest for their organization and, especially, in their human rights program. I attached my Curriculum Vitae, a resume, a letter of motivation, my IELTS and DALF certificates and, as a sample of writing, one of the papers that I had to write during my Master’s Degree in Groningen. Namely, this dissertation of mine is titled “The ethics of offshoring” and I wrote it as a conclusive paper for the seminar “Ethics and Global Political Economy” by dr. ir. Menno Kamminga. The central theme of said paper is the offshoring of labor, meaning the relocation of certain business processes in different countries, and the ethical implications it involves, especially in terms of rights of workers. I chose this paper to complete my application for an internship at the CSD because it seemed to me that it combined the dimensions of human rights and international economy.

I sent my application to the CSD in mid-July. One week after, I received an e-mail by Milena Yordanova, the Executive Assistant of the CSD, in response to my application. She said that they were interested in offering me a placement in their think tank, initially for the Sociological Program and later for the Law Program, based on my expressed interest in the field of human rights and on their corporate necessities.

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After I accepted the placement, Ms Yordanova texted me again to come to an agreement on the details of my future internship. We decided that my placement would last only a bit longer than three months, from 16 September to 20 December 2019, and it would be full-time, meaning eight hours a day for five days per week (from Monday to Friday).

Nature and description of my job and my expectations

I also received elucidations about the nature of my job (even if, to be honest, the organization had already been quite clear about it in their job announcement, linked on the placement portal of the University of Groningen). I would work as a researcher, cooperating with more experienced researchers in my fields of interest, within different projects. Due to my position as an intern and a new person in the organization, moreover, I would work under the supervision of one or more of said researchers, who would become my guide and point person for the time of my placement. In this regard, the Center for the Study of Democracy was extremely effective in making sure that I was provided with a clear explanation of the general nature of my future job, as well as with information on their organization. Indeed, not only did Ms Yordanova express her availability to answer my questions and doubts and, if necessary, schedule a Skype meeting to do so, but she also sent me a document that the association has produced expressively for prospective interns: the “Guidelines for Interns at the Center for the Study of Democracy”.

The Guidelines confirmed that the work of the Center for the Study of Democracy in 2019 would be built around five thematic areas: Crime and Justice, Human Rights and Migration, Corruption and Anti-Corruption, Energy Security and Competitiveness, and Russian Economic Influence. The organization did not ask me to carry out some type of preparation relating to the content of my future job. However, they sent me a guide to read in order to familiarize with the type of work I would be performing starting from mid-September. First of all, I received an explanation of what would be the responsibilities of interns generally, without specific reference to any program or area. I found out that, during my stay at the CSD, I would have both general and specific responsibilities, because of which I would be granted access to a broad range of the material and resources of the organization: the library, interviews with the center’s experts, and the organization’s network of external contacts and associates. In the guidelines I received, general responsibilities were broadly described as assistance in the preparation and implementation of the assigned projects, as well as cooperation in the day-to-day work of the center. Specific responsibilities of interns, in turn, were listed in greater detail, and they were described as consisting of research for and drafting of policy briefs, writing of analytical policy reports, contribution to the preparation of policy workshops, conferences (including media notes), and other events, and preparation of policy briefings and administrative officials. Furthermore it was specified that, although my contract indicated 40 working hours per week, the workload was to be intended as variable, and interns in this sense should be flexible and adapt to the needs of the organization, which could vary depending on the week or even on the day.

Finally, a section of the guidelines was dedicated to technical instructions. Every Program of the organization has its own “chain of command”, based on which tasks are distributed and assigned.

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The members of a given team assign tasks to interns, specifying the deadlines, the exact instructions to follow and what should be given priority over what (in case of multiple simultaneous tasks). Moreover, the CSD guidelines underlined that any contribution and suggestion by the interns is welcome, in an environment of collaboration. Basic technical requirements were also listed with reference to the layout of Word and Excel documents.

After receiving their e-mails and guidelines, I started having a pretty clear idea on what my work at CSD would be. The exact content of my future tasks had not been specified, of course, but I knew that I would work as a researcher and that I would get guidance throughout the whole process. When I was preparing all the documents with the university, I had great expectations about this internship. Honestly, I had never seriously considered working in a think tank, but now that I started learning more about this job, it sounded quite exciting to me. First of all, I expected to learn something new throughout my period at the CSD. I expected this process to involve not only learning how to carry out the research work (of which I had some experience as a Master student, but only in the academic field and only from a student perspective), but also in terms of content. Indeed, from my experience as a student who needed to write several papers during my Master, I had already had a chance to find out that, no matter how much we believe we know on a given topic, the research work leading to the writing of a paper, policy brief, or report always involves learning something new and looking at the different approaches to a theme we are somehow already familiar with.

For what concerns the topic I would focus on, I could not shape clear expectations yet. In fact, as Ms Yordanova herself had admitted, this would depend mostly of the necessities and priorities of the organization upon my arrival. However, the organization had assured me that my interests in human rights and anti- and counter-terrorism, as well as my university path, would always remain at the core of my work during the placement.

In terms of supervision, I did not know exactly what to expect, and this made me quite nervous. As a matter of fact, I deem myself to be able to work independently on tasks but, at the same time, I am aware that, during the first stages of a new job or experience, I feel the need to ask lots of questions in order to solve my doubts and feel confident when carrying out my tasks.

Finance-wise, the internship was unpaid. The Center for the Study of Democracy has always been correct and transparent on this matter, specifying from the very beginning (in the job announcement), but also in the first e-mail they sent me in response to my application, that no financial compensation would be corresponded to the interns from the organization. However, I managed to obtain a grant with the European program Erasmus+. Erasmus+ covers some costs related to internships abroad for current or recently graduated students from universities of the European Union, as long as the situation satisfies certain criteria (such as acknowledgment of the organization, maximum wage, etc.). Because I met such requirements, I needed to take an English language test online (which I repeated at the end of my placement) and I received said grant, of 360 euros per month for every month of work (in my case, that amounted to three months and one week, all covered). The monthly sum of money received depended on the estimated cost of living in the receiving country, and Bulgaria classified as one of the States with the lowest cost of living.

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Impressions on housing, cost of living, and social

surroundings

Milena Yordanova from the Center of the Study of Democracy was also extremely helpful in terms of helping me and the other interns at the organization find affordable and central housing for the period of our stay. She sent me the name of a hostel where I could stay in case I still lacked an accommodation when I arrived, some AirBnb contacts in Sofia, and the Facebook name of a landlord owing (or renting out) several apartments in the city center. I contacted said landlord a few weeks before leaving for Sofia and I found a room in a shared apartment in the city center for 250 euros per month. At first I thought this was extremely convenient but, after I moved to Bulgaria, I discovered that this is actually pretty expensive compared to the local average. My flatmates and I also ran into some issues during our stay: for example, the water was not working properly in the house during the day, causing us major problems and delays, and the landlord was extremely slow and ineffective in addressing our problems. Moreover, I found out only upon my arrival that the bills were not included in the 250 euros monthly rent, which he had not specified when we had messaged to arrange my stay. I addressed these issues with the CSD and, once again, they were helpful and had one of their lawyers call the landlord, but they could not actually solve the water nor the financial issue. In any case, they took note of his incorrect and disrespectful behavior and they promised not to recommend his name and apartments to prospective interns anymore.

Left aside the aforementioned issues with the landlord, the location of the apartment was ideal, being situated right in the city center. It was two minutes walking from Serdika subway station and from the stop of the tram which used to take me to my workplace every morning (the tram took approximately 25 minutes, because the CSD was not exactly in the center). I was also less than 5 minutes walking from many facilities, such as the supermarket, the baker, the gym.

All the main monuments of the city (the Orthodox Cathedral of Aleksander Nevsky, the Russian Church, the Palaces of the Government, the University, etc.) were located in the city center, all of them between five and fifteen minutes walking from my place, which made it easy and comfortable for me to visit the city and discover something more about its history in the couple of days following my arrival. Living in the city center meant that everything was at walking distance and the neighborhood was never too deserted (there were even shops open 24/7), which made me feel safe walking home alone, even during the night.

In terms of social surroundings, the neighborhood was quite and calm. Notwithstanding, it was often under the surveillance of the police, that was present there almost at all times. In case of protest the center, including my neighborhood, got blocked, with trams and buses not circulating and people being required to show their ID or some identification in order to be allowed to accede some central streets, including the one where I lived, because they led to Embassies and Consulates. When I arrived I also thought that the center of Sofia had to be a good example of integration, with churches of several different religions co-existing very close to each other: at least three Christian Orthodox churches, one Mosque, one Synagogue, one Christian Catholic Church. However, I was told by some Bulgarian friends that such coexistence was not peaceful at

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all times, especially due to people’s hostilities to the Muslim community gathering around the central Mosque.

Personally, I have never experienced any issue or negative occurrence with people living in my neighborhood. The only problem was, at times, of communication, because many people (cashiers at the supermarket, bakers, people to whom I asked for indications in the streets) could not speak proper English, and I cannot speak Bulgarian (during my stay I managed to independently learn the alphabet and some very basic phrases, but that was all).

Cost-wise, I found Sofia to be cheap. Actually, I was told by my employers that my area was the most expensive in the whole country, being in the center of the capital city and welcoming tourists everyday. Nonetheless, prices were about the half compared to my home country (Italy) and even less when compared to the cost of living in the Netherlands.

The Center for the Study of Democracy

The Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) is a think tank or interdisciplinary public policy institute. Its work revolves around four main axes, embodied in its four Programs or Departments (Law Program, Economic Program, Sociological Program, and Security Program). The themes and topics approached in their numerous projects are, most of the time, interdisciplinary themselves, involving more than one of these four dimensions or, often, all of them. More than different areas, therefore, the four Programs represent diverse approaches to cross issues. The organization is non-partisan and independent, funded at 70% by the European Union and for the remaining 30% by private actors. The organization is openly dedicated to the values of democracy and market economy.

The CSD was established in Sofia in 1989, following the fall of the communist dictatorship in Bulgaria, with the aim of supervising and promoting the reform process in the country. Apart from analysis, their work also consists of advocacy on policy makers and civil society. The most prominent areas in which the CSD has been giving its contribution, moreover working as a pioneer in their own state, are: organized crime, energy security, national security, anti-corruption, competitiveness of the country, innovation potential of the country, good governance in the energy sector.

In its several projects, the Center for the Study of Democracy cooperates with many other think tanks, research centers, organizations, and universities, especially in Europe. Also, the Applied Research and Communications Fund (ARC Fund) is the “sister organization” of the CSD, and the two work in close cooperation with each other. Coordinator of the Bulgarian division of “Enterprise Europe Network”, the ARC is dedicated to the fields of innovation policy and knowledge-based-economy.

The Center for the Study of Democracy works towards four main declared objectives, listed on their website. First, they want to foster a successful integration process in the European Union through the strengthening of institutional and policy capacity. Second, they want to encourage institutional reform and the practical application, in economic and legal practice, of democratic

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values. Third, they want to act as a watchdog for the process of institutional reform in Bulgaria, including in the monitoring of public attitudes. Finally, their fourth objective is linked to non-governmental organizations in Bulgaria, whose institutional and management capacity the CSD aims at reinforcing.

Tasks and activities during the placement

During my placement at the Center for the Study of Democracy, I worked for two different departments. In September and October, and then again in December, I carried out tasks for the Sociological Program, under the supervision of Gergana Tzvetkova, whereas in November I worked for the Law Program, with Tatyana Novossiolova.

My supervisors were the ones who assigned me tasks to do, and the modality was similar every time. After I completed a task, they would either arrange a quick meeting to explain me what the next one would be or they would send it to me by e-mail. In any case, I could contact them anytime to ask questions or meet them in their office if I had some doubts on the nature of the task, on the content or on how to proceed with it. Normally, my supervisors would also communicate me the deadline for a given activity. However, left alone cases of emergency, said deadlines were to be intended as flexible, because the length of the task, of the research and of the report could not be known in advance and my supervisors specified multiple times that they would rather receive a complete report with one or a few days of delay (compared to the supposed deadline) than an incomplete one on time. In this sense, a good communication both face-to-face and by e-mail was crucial in allowing me and my supervisors to coordinate our work and to adapt my time management to the needs of the organization and vice versa.

The tasks I received were of varied nature and, for the most part, very interesting. The CSD tried to stick to my university specialization in international security, which also fitted their needs, as many of their projects concerned terrorism, anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism, approached from different angles and perspectives. My supervisor from the Sociological Program showed her interest in my knowledge of foreign languages, especially French, from the first day. Indeed, a significant part of the literature and policy documents to be analyzed had been produced in Belgium or France, therefore it was written in French. In one occasion I also reported on material originally written in Italian, for the most part governmental documents and leaflets.

My first task with the Sociological Program was related to radicalization, de-radicalization and counter-radicalization, and my assigned geographical area of research covered France and Belgium. The material I read and analyzed was written for the most part in French and, more rarely, in English, but I reported on it writing exclusively in English. First, I focused on policy documents, leaflets and briefs from governmental organizations, approaching the issue of radicalization (intended as religious radicalization leading to Islamic terrorism and/or support to it) and proposing solutions in the framework of counter-radicalization. Then I also analyzed documents from non-governmental organizations (especially, but not limited to, Amnesty International) and on their role of policy making, but even more advocacy, in the field of anti- and counter-radicalization. Finally, I was required to keep an eye on academic literature on the

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aforementioned themes, to provide policies with theoretical deepness and legitimacy. A focus was also put on online radicalization and the specific challenges it involves in terms of counter-radicalization. Moreover, special attention was paid to the counter-radicalization of youth. In this regard, policy documents addressed to parents, teachers and other professional and non-professional figures acting in contact with young people. The issue of radicalization and counter-radicalization in prison also received attention, given the relevance of the treatment of prisoners for their future attitude towards society and the perception of their role within it.

Due to the fact that this was the very first task I received upon my arrival at the Center for the Study of Democracy, it was also the one for which I needed the greatest amount of supervision. Ms Tzvetkova explained to me, face to face, what she expected, but she also specified that she did not intend to give too detailed instructions to me in order not to limit my spontaneous contribution. Rather, she gave me general guidelines to follow and the structure to stick to while listing and summarizing the documents I would find. It was a one-week task, but we agreed that I would send a provisional report on the third day in order to make sure that I was not going out of track nor leaving out any important information. After reviewing my work in progress, my supervisor reassured me that I was not committing any substantial mistakes and she only corrected some technical details (such as the way to link a given website when providing general information about a document).

With regard to my second task, the focus shifted from radicalization and international security to gender-based violence and human security. Once again, I was required to carry out desk research and analyze documents from governmental and non-governmental organizations, academic journals and also newspapers. Moreover, this time I needed to look at statistics produced on a national level and concerning gender-based violence. Gender-based violence was to be intended, for the scope of this project, as violence against women, girls as well as female children, and LGBTQ+ people. The definition of “violence” itself, as described in the project’s outlines, was broad and comprehensive: domestic violence, sexual violence, beatings and other types of physical violence, stalking, verbal violence, but also discrimination (on the workplace, in the healthcare system, etc.), bullying in schools, stigmatization of abortion and other less evident forms of violence. In this case I was assigned three countries: Italy, France, and Belgium. Therefore, I analyzed documents in Italian and French (for the most part), but I reported in English only.

After completing this task, I went back to focusing on radicalization. Most of my tasks for the Sociological Program were actually somehow related to the topic of terrorism and radicalization, because the Center for the Study of Democracy is taking part in a broad international program on this theme: GREASE 2020. This time I was asked to focus on the radicalization process from a different perspective, analyzing the factors which, according to policy and academic literature, provided fertile ground for radicalization. Even if the project aimed at isolating those factors leading to religious radicalization in particular, I had to research on grounds for radicalization more generally, to check if some indicators were cross, for example encouraging both religious and political radicalization.

After that, I moved to the part of the project that for me turned out to be the most interesting. My job was to test a set of indicators already developed from the researchers of the Sociological

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Program. The indicators referred to the context of countries in terms of ongoing and past violent conflicts, levels of freedom, respect of human rights, and adherence to the rule of law, levels of religion-related government restrictions and of social hostilities based on religion, level of presence of online content spreading hate and promoting violent extremism, data relating to terrorism (number of terrorist attacks, number of victims in such attacks, number of foreign terrorist fighters and returnees). I tested these indicators for four different countries (Egypt, India, Greece, and France) and for four different years, at intervals of five years (2000, 2005, 2010, 2015). All these indicators, combined, aimed at providing a more or less clear pictures of the national factors, past and present, which contribute in determining the likeliness of the emergence of radicalization and violent extremism.

As I have said, this task was extremely interesting, but it was also quite challenging and I could not carry it out without facing some problems. First of all, even the most quoted and reliable statistics and indicators often lack coverage of some areas of the world, or prove to be less accurate for countries of the Global South compared to those of the Global North. This constituted a major problem in my analysis, especially considered that terrorism and radicalization hit the Global South disproportionately, therefore an accurate study cannot ignore some parts of the world. This is especially true for countries or areas of the world that are or have been involved in external or internal violent conflicts for the lapse of time in point. Indeed, measuring data and statistics in zones of war is problematic: sometimes such data are not available at all or, when they are, their reliability is deeply compromised. Second, data for older years are more difficult to retrieve. This is due, in part, to the fact that some indicators (e.g. those of the Pew Research Center) have been developed after 2000, and even after 2005, therefore were only available for two of the four years in point. Moreover, certain indicators, such as that referring to the abundance of online hate speech, only made sense when referred to the more recent years, because this phenomenon was born and spread as a massive issue only during the last decade.

Despite these obstacles, this task turned out be particularly interesting. During my Master, I had already worked with indicators. However, my experience with this type of research was more limited compared to research on secondary data. Working with first-hand, primary data helped me to better understand how the very first step of a research is carried out, including the difficulties one might run into. Furthermore, whilst I was given specific indications on where to look for data for a couple of indicators, for the rest of them I was left the freedom to retrieve them from any source. This taught me to distinguish reliable from non-reliable sources and it also meant paying extra attention to specific data. For example, I noticed that data on terrorism in France for 2015 were wrong, despite the source (Global Terrorism Index) being reliable. The reason why I was able to remark this is that the reported number of victims of terrorist attacks for that year was low, but this seemed impossible to me, being 2015 the year of the attacks to Charlie Hebdo and of 13th

of November. I could detect the mistake because in 2015 I was old enough to keep myself informed of what was going on in the world which I could not tell for the other years (except, maybe, 2010): this pushed me to double-check all other data for every country and taught me to always do it when undertaking research.

Additionally, I was asked to retrieve data for other two indicators, both of which relating to terrorist groups. The first was referred to the presence of domestic terrorist and/or extremist

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groups and organizations; the second one aimed at detecting the number of international or foreign terrorist and/or extremist groups and organizations with domestic branches operating in the country. Due to the abundance of terrorist groups, especially in some countries, and to their continual proliferation, fusions, and splittings, as well as their clandestine nature, this proved to be a difficult task. I exposed my problem to my supervisor and, together with her and with the Head of the Sociological Program, we agreed to add the wording “identified as such and banned by official authorities” to the denomination of “terrorist and/or extremist groups and organizations”. Even so, any official statistics lacked data on this point, therefore I needed to carry out a two-step task for each one of the four countries. First, I researched on all the terrorist groups operating in it, and made a list of their names, followed by a brief explanation for each one. Then, I counted them to transform the collected material into countable numerical indicators. Afterwards, at the beginning of November, I switched to the Law Program, where I was supervised by Tatyana Novossiolova. I spent one month collaborating with the Law Program, and I had one task, articulated into multiple components. This brought great satisfaction to me, as I had to opportunity to implement an entire section of the project and to accomplish what I had started. The project as a whole, coordinated by Agenfor International (based in Milan), and in which the Center for the Study of Democracy was a partner, was centered around the guarantee of criminal procedural rights in the context of counter-terrorism and terror- and radicalization-related cases. In particular, the project focused on the implementation of the Stockholm Roadmap, the Swedish roadmap on procedural rights.

First of all, I analyzed the different dimensions of criminal procedural rights and I detected their presence in five major directives of the European Union, summarizing the results in a table.

Following this, I had to research documents: for the most part, legal instruments of any type (laws, directives, declarations, etc.), but also policy and guidance documents. These documents related to three distinct broad areas. The first section included legal documents referring to terrorist acts and counter-terrorism and the research had to be conducted on three levels: international (in particular, but not limited to, the United Nations), regional (in particular, but not limited to, the European Union), and national (in this case, I was not supposed to analyze every single country in the world, but rather a small group of them to use as a sample: Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, and Portugal).

The second broad section, in turn, consisted of an overview of criminal procedural rights provisions. This definition includes legal documents (again legal instruments and policy and guidance documents) protecting the fundamental rights of human beings during criminal proceedings, therefore applying to suspected people pending-trial. Again, the research was articulated against the three axes: international, regional, and national, with the same five European states used as a sample.

Finally, the third section turned out to be a bit different from the previous two and, in turn, it was divided into two sub-topics. The first one referred to criminal procedural rights in terror-related cases and it consisted of policy documents (especially produced on a EU level), legislation and legal documents on the treatment of people suspected of acts of terrorism, of support to terrorism, or of other terrorism-related offenses. The second part of this final section, instead, focused on securitization, a term indicating how certain issues were securitized in public and political speech.

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An issue is “securitized” through an act of speech when it is constructed as a threat to public order and human security. Similarly, a group of people can be “securitized” in two, somehow opposed, ways: when they are represented as a threat to the rest of society, and when they are depicted as an “object” to save and help. The topics whose securitization I have analyzed in this final section were the terrorist threat and, in particular, its supposed link with migration and refugees, especially in Europe. The objective of this third section as a whole consisted of the application of procedural rights to terror-related cases and showing how certain processes of securitization can, instead, prevent the protection of human rights of certain categories of people.

As I have mentioned, this task was, if demanding and challenging, also very engaging and interesting for me. The cooperation with my supervisor was very prolific. Although I worked quite autonomously, I could always ask her help when I had some doubts, as well as expose my ideas and suggestions if something came to my mind while carrying out the research. I did not find many obstacles during the whole month, the only problem was related to legal documents on Portuguese national laws, because they were not available in English in international databases, which we solved with the help of a Portuguese intern who translated from the original language. Additionally, and with my immense satisfaction, at the end of the month I spent with the Law Program, I was announced that one of the reports I had produced will be published, both online and on printed paper, in spring 2020. This research report refers to the first section of the project, summarizing the legislation and related documents on terrorism, radicalization, and terror-related cases, and it has been selected for publication for the EU-sponsored international initiative the CSD is cooperating in.

On the 1st_{of December, I went back to the Sociological Program. Actually, this additional switch}

had not been planned, as I was supposed to go on working for the Law Program until the end of my internship. Notwithstanding, the Head of the Sociological Program had been temporarily transferred to another country and the department was lacking sufficient human resources. Therefore, they asked to Law Program to send me back, on which we all agreed for corporate necessities.

Back to the Sociological Program, I continued working on the indicators on radicalization, this time in a different manner. Indeed, the countable indicators had already been measured, but some other indicators were required in order to provide a clear overview for every country. In particular, what we needed was a set of indicators measuring state-religion governance and violent radicalization, with the aim of assessing the trends on secularism and radicalization within a given country and across countries. I contributed first-hand to the development of such indicators. This also represented a new experience for me and it proved to be a challenging and exciting task.

In particular, I was assigned two dimensions to measure: first, the level of religious restrictions and hostilities and second, grievances and dissatisfaction with foreign policy and international intervention. I claimed that this task was challenging and fascinating because I had to build up such indicators from nothing. What I did was, first of all, looking for sources, especially statistics, which could relate to these two topics. Then, for each one of the two dimensions, from the relevant sources I had found, I developed three statements apt at measuring them. Finally, I transformed the primary data I had found into numbers measuring the indicators I was building.

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Being so complex, this task did not come without its hardships. At first I was feeling a bit lost and I asked my supervisor for guidance. She suggested me one source and, even with only that one indication, I felt much more confident in my work and looking autonomously for other documents and statistics.

Overall, this task, together with my whole work for the Law Program, were the ones which I enjoyed the most and which, I believe, helped me to grow professionally. Indeed, in both cases, I had to build the architecture of my project myself and I could see how the following research and reporting/measuring work I implemented on it did or did not adapt to the structure I had imagined. In same cases, I needed to change the original architecture in order to meet the real necessities coming with the gathering of material which, I believe, provided me with more flexibility in my way of working and approaching research.

I have already listed the problems and issues I had to face for the single projects I contributed to. Altogether, I think the main problem I encountered was the lack of data and documents for some specific topics and indicators. At first, this slowed me down significantly in my work, because I believed I was making some mistakes in my research, maybe in the key words to be searched, which prevented me to have success in my task. However, when I exposed this problem to my supervisor, I found out that it is actually quite frequent, in the research-related work, to discover that no material exists to fit the questions and structure we had designed for a project. This means that, sometimes, the architecture itself needs to be modified in order to fit the literature and primary data at our disposal, and not the other way around.

For what concerns my initial expectations, I would say they were fulfilled, and even exceeded. As a matter of fact, research work as I had known it previously to my internship was limited to the writing of academic papers. Even if, sometimes, this included elaborating on primary data, it had never been about using such data to build indicators, therefore producing other numerical data. Also, being published came as a positive surprise which I had not predicted.

Connection between my placement and my degree

programme and track

The connections between my Master programme and track and my internship were several.

As I have already said more than once, my specialization during my degree was in International Security: this course was my Capita and, in order to pass it, I was required to write a paper, that I decided to build around the theme of anti- and counter-terrorism. The Center for the Study of Democracy was aware of this interest of mine, as they had taken the time to have a look at my degree programme and I had specified my main interests in the motivation letter that I sent with my application for the job.

Therefore, after checking with me, they decided that centering my placement tasks around the topic of counter-terrorism (in its different dimensions) would be productive both for me and for them. What I had studied in International Security, without any doubt, helped me carrying out research on radicalization and counter-radicalization.

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For example, one thing I had focused on in writing my Capita paper was how a successful counter-terrorism strategy must not ignore the agency of those groups of people who are traditionally left out of the picture, or included just as “victims” or “passive subjects”, especially women and children. My supervisors were very satisfied with this suggestion I made to integrate the project. Indeed, it turned out that children are among the most targeted groups of people for recruitment, especially online recruitment. This appears to be quite well-known in the academic field, but it is often ignored by policy-makers even if some countries, like France, have started to include a focus on the issue of the radicalization of children and minors in their governmental policies and recommendations. Moreover, more and more attention has been paid to the agency of women both in terrorism and counter-terrorism. Traditionally, their role was considered marginal and secondary compared to those of men, which allowed terrorist groups to have material transported across borders by women, deemed to be harmless and innocent by definition.

But the integration happened also the other way around: my experience during the placement, as a matter of fact, provided me with knowledge complementary to that acquired during my studies. In particular, talking about terrorism and counter-terrorism, in Groningen I had had the opportunity to explore different theoretical approaches to the issue. In Sofia, working on the several projects, I could integrate this theoretical insights with practical examples of how different countries, as well as regional organizations and the international community, have been addressing the problem of terrorism and proposing anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism solutions.

The same thing could be said about international security more generally. Whereas during my Master I learned that different theoretical insights (e.g. state security, human security, feminist security, etc.) can be used to study and interpret security, determining different outcomes in terms of policies, researching on it I could discover how these approaches have been implemented in reality. These theories of international security are also linked to the relevant theories of IR (realism, neo-liberal institutionalism, feminism, etc.).

An important concept that was mentioned during my Capita classes and I could analyze in more deepness while working at the CSD was that of “securitization”, which I have already mentioned. I understood, through research on real and contemporary situations (e.g. the different attempts of securitization of migration enacted by the EU since 2011), how issues can be securitized through acts of speech, implicitly or explicitly.

The extensive work on the Stockholm Roadmap, in turn, allowed me to integrate my understanding of human rights, their protection, and the gap between legislation and practice, which I had obtained with the seminar on “Human Rights, Democratization, and Peace”. During this seminar, we had explored the international legislation, practice and multilateral cooperation on human rights based on the different groups of people entitled to them (e.g. women’s rights, children’s rights, etc.). However, the seminar lacked a specific focus on criminal procedural rights and on the guarantees for suspects of crimes in terms of protection from abuse, as well as the bilateral and multilateral cooperation in international law and in implementation on this issues.

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My future prospects

As I have said at the beginning of this report, prior to this internship, I had never considered research as my possible future career. I have always been oriented towards something more “practical” and linked to policy making.

However, my placement at the Center for the Study of Democracy provided me with a more accurate notion of what the research work consists of. Indeed, I discovered that it has strong links with policy-making and that it also encompasses a relevant element of advocacy. This changed my perspectives quite radically.

As a matter of fact now, after finishing my internship, I am looking for a job in the world of research, possibly in an international think tank or research institute. This area will be my preferred field of work, at least in the immediate future, as it will allow me to combine theory and practice and to give my contribution to research while also learning something new everyday myself.

One of my supervisors, Ms Novossiolova, was impressed with my dedication and has provided me with some contacts to start a career in the research field. She has been collaborating with different research institutes in Italy, including the IAI in Rome and Agenfor International in Milan (my hometown) and she put me in contact with them, attaching her recommendation letter. However, I am not sure whether I want to stay in Italy. My one-year experience in Groningen proved extremely fulfilling for me, and I would like to go back to the Netherlands. Therefore, I will probably send applications to research institutes in the Netherlands too, starting with the CESS in Groningen.

Tips for students seeking a placement with the CSD

I would recommend the Center for the Study of Democracy as a placement provider for students of International Relations (actually, my fellow interns there also came from different fields of study, such as Law, Economics, and Political Science).

Through this internship you will learn not only how to work in the field of research, but you will also have the opportunity to enrich your theoretical knowledge in your field of study. The working environment is relaxed and the organization is not strongly hierarchical. You will work in the library with the rest of the interns, which will also help you socialize with other young people (that was a concern of mine when I left for a country I knew nothing about, starting from its language).

The only negative aspect I can think about is its nature of unpaid internship. Nonetheless, you can obtain grants through your university, and Sofia is not an expensive city compared to the rest of Europe, especially Western and Northern Europe.

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Conclusion

To conclude this report, the outcome of my internship at the Center for the Study of Democracy is extremely positive. Not only did it provide me with new knowledge in the field of International Relations, and International Security in particular, and with more confidence in my way of working and researching. It also gave me the opportunity to know a country in Eastern Europe, to visit new places and explore a new way of living and, what is more important for me right now, it allowed me to understand where I wanna start my career, opening up new prospects.

Internship: “Migration, integration of vulnerable groups, radicalisation, fundamental rights in the context of counter-terrorism”