The invisible sea is a place of floating democratic politics

Assistant Professor Nikolas Kosmatopoulos, in the Graduate Program in Public Policy and International Affairs and the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration, had led a research and teaching project on the hidden dimensions of the Mediterranean Sea, especially in politics and international relations. He explains how the sea matters in different ways to all the people who share it – in trade, migration, political protest, environmental conditions, labor, and other areas. But its prevailing rules and perceptions, set by modern European powers or centuries-old systems designed in imperial days for much larger oceans, need to be revised. His project on maritime politics in the Mediterranean also aims to make the sea visible again to the eyes of its citizens today.