Tom Theuns is Senior Assistant Professor of Political Theory and European Politics at the Institute of Political Science in Leiden and Associate Researcher at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po Paris. Previously, he held a research position at Utrecht University and a teaching position at the University of Amsterdam. In 2021 he started a four-year Veni grant from the NWO for his project Protecting Democracy in Europe.

Tom Theuns defended his PhD ‘The Legitimacy of EU Democracy Promotion in the Neighbourhood’ in Political Science at Sciences Po Paris in 2017. Before Paris, he read for an MPhil in Politics at Balliol College, University of Oxford, and a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences at University College Maastricht. Current research projects investigate the right to vote, the tension between democratic ideals and EU policies, procedural accounts of the value and justification of democratic government, and the legitimate scope of EU policies designed to protect and entrench democratic government.