Tuesday 18 November 2025 – Ruben Ros (Leiden): Between Necessity and Contingency: Modelling the History of (De)Politicization, 1945-

This seminar is 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm GMT live on Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/91028456235 later posted to our YouTube channel.

Session chair: Mara Oliva

Abstract: What does it mean for ideas and issues to suddenly become political? And how do they become depoliticized? This talk explores methods for tracing politicization and depoliticization in historical discourse through digital research. Using parliamentary speeches from the postwar Netherlands and United Kingdom, I show how techniques like word and topic modelling can be adapted to study these processes. By integrating digital methods with conceptual history and political science, I demonstrate how political concepts shift over time, being redefined, weaponized, or neutralized. This approach offers new insights into enduring questions in political history and shows how combining theory and method opens fresh paths for historical research.