Populism, Political Change and the Rise of Authoritarian Rule in the European Union

Speaker

Milada Anna Vachudova specializes in the democratization of postcommunist Europe, the enlargement of the European Union, and the impact of international actors on domestic politics. She is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her book, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage and Integration After Communism, was published by Oxford University Press in 2005. It analyzes how the leverage of an enlarging EU has influenced domestic politics and facilitated a convergence toward liberal democracy among credible future members of the EU in Central and Eastern Europe. Europe Undivided has been awarded the XIIth Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research. This is a major international prize awarded biennially by the International Social Science Council. Europe Undivided is also a co-winner of the 2006 Marshall Shulman Prize awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Professor Vachudova is now working on her second book project comparing the experience of democratization and international engagement in the Western Balkans since 1995. Professor Vachudova has held fellowships and research grants from the European University Institute in Italy, the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, the European Union Center at Columbia University, the Center for International Studies at Princeton University, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Center and the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research. She received a BA from Stanford University in 1991. As a British Marshall Scholar and a member of St. Antony’s College, she completed a D.Phil. in the Faculty of Politics at the University of Oxford in 1997.