Projects
Rising Democracy Network Members

Senem Aydın-Düzgit

Senem Aydın-Düzgit is an associate professor of international relations at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Sabancı University and a senior scholar and the research and academic affairs coordinator at the Istanbul Policy Center. She was previously a Jean Monnet Chair in the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. Her main research interests include EU enlargement, EU-Turkey relations, discourse studies, politics of identity, and democratization. She was awarded the 2014 Young Scientist Award by the Turkish Science Academy. She earned her PhD at Vrije Universiteit Brussels and her articles have been published in West European Politics, Cooperation and Conflict, South European Society and Politics, Alternatives, International Relations, and Politique Européenne. She is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), and a board member of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM).

Featured Publications

I Ketut Putra Erawan

I Ketut Putra Erawan is an active scholar and researcher working on democracy issues in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. He is the executive director of Institute for Peace and Democracy, an Indonesian think-tank and the implementing agency of the Bali Democracy Forum. In 2005-2009, Dr. Erawan served as director of the Graduate Program in Political Science at Gadjah Mada University. He was a special advisor for the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia, an expert for the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Indonesia, a member of the Steering Committee for the Australia and Indonesia Governance Research Partnership, a member of the Academic Committee of the Rotary Peace Center at the Chulalongkorn University in Thailand,, and a consultant for the World Bank, World Bank Institute, UNDP, and various Indonesian agencies.

Featured Publications

Andreas E. Feldmann

Andreas E. Feldmann is an associate professor in the departments of Latin American and Latino Studies and Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research specializes in international relations with a focus on Latin America. Among the topics he investigates are human rights, population uprooting, political violence and terrorism, and international cooperation and development. His work has appeared in Latin American Politics and Society, Terrorism and Political Violence, Beyond Law, Revista de Ciencia Política and Migración y Desarrollo. Feldmann has worked as a consultant for the International Development Research Centre and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and served as assistant to the Special Rapporteur on Migrant Workers and Their Families at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2000-2006). He earned a PhD in political science at the University of Notre Dame.

Featured Publications

Tjiurimo Alfredo Hengari

Tjiurimo Alfredo Hengari is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the South African Institute for International Affairs and lectures part-time at the University of the Witwatersrand. Hengari holds a PhD and a master’s degree in political science from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, a master’s in international studies from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, and a bachelor of arts in Politics and Sociology from the University of Namibia. He taught international relations at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and at the Rouen Business School in France. He has previously served as chef de cabinet and senior special assistant to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Namibia and worked as a consultant to the United Nations in Burundi.

Featured Publications

Maiko Ichihara

Maiko Ichihara is an associate professor at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. She earned her PhD in political science from George Washington University and a Master’s degree in political science from Columbia University. Her research focuses on international democracy assistance and civil society. She is currently working on a comparative study of democracy assistance provided by different developed democracies.

Featured Publications

Gilbert M. Khadiagala

Gilbert M. Khadiagala is the Jan Smuts professor of International Relations and head of the department of International Relations at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. His research focuses on politics, security, foreign policy, and conflict resolution in Africa. Professor Khadiagala is currently doing research on South Africa’s democracy promotion efforts, leadership in post-conflict transitions, and mediation of electoral conflicts in Africa.

Featured Publications

  • Gilbert M. Khadiagala, Meddlers or Mediators? African Interveners in Civil Conflicts in Eastern Africa, E.J. Brill, 2007.
  • Gilbert M. Khadiagala and Terrence Lyons (eds.), Conflict Management and African Politics: Ripeness, Bargaining, and Mediation, Routledge Studies in Security and Conflict Management series, 2008.
  • Gilbert M. Khadiagala and Fritz Nganje, “The Evolution of South Africa’s Democracy Promotion in Africa: From Idealism to Pragmatism,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2015.

Sook Jong Lee

Sook Jong Lee is professor of public administration at Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul, South Korea. Since 2008, she has also served as president of the East Asia Institute, a Seoul-based independent think-tank. Her research focuses on civil society, political economy and democracy in Korea and Japan. Her previous positions include Senior Research Fellow at the Sejong Institute, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Professorial Lecturer at the SAIS of Johns Hopkins University. Professor Lee received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University.

Featured Publications

Federico Merke

Federico Merke is professor of international relations and director of undergraduate studies in political science and international relations at San Andrés University, Argentina. He is also a researcher for the National Council for Scientific Research and an associate in the Latin American Program at the IDEAS research center at the London School of Economics. His main research interests include international relations theory, human rights, international security, and Latin American international politics. Merke holds a master of arts in international studies from Warwick University and a PhD from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, Buenos Aires.

Featured Publications

  • Federico Merke, “English School and Constructivism in Latin American Security Studies,” in Routledge Handbook of Latin American Security, ed. Arie Kacowicz and David Mares (forthcoming).
  • Federico Merke, “Neither balance nor bandwagon: South American international society meets Brazil’s rising power,” International Politics 52, no. 2 (2015): 178–192.
  • Federico Merke, “Foreign Policy and Human Rights Advocacy: An Exercise in Measurement and Explanation,” Human Rights Review 14, no. 2 (2015): 131–155.

Tsveta Petrova

Tsveta Petrova is an Associate Research Scholar at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Cornell University in 2011 and then accepted post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard University’s Davis Center and then at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. Petrova’s work focuses on the study of democracy, democratization, and democracy promotion. She is the recipient of several research and teaching awards as well as many fellowships and grants, including the SSRC Dissertation Completion fellowship, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars research grant, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research fellowship, a Smith Richardson Foundation grant, and a Council for European Studies Pre-dissertation fellowship. Her book on democracy export by new democracies is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

Featured Publications

Niranjan Sahoo

Niranjan Sahoo is Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi since 2004. He has published extensively on issues of democracy, human rights, decentralized governance, constitutionalism, and nation-building in South Asia. His current research focuses on the domestic drivers of India’s foreign policy objectives with regard to democracy and human rights in South Asia as well as new social movements and the changing nature of democracy in India. A recipient of 2010 ASIA Fellow Award (funded by The Ford Foundation), Dr. Sahoo recently was a Visiting Asia Fellow at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

Featured Publications

Oliver della Costa Stuenkel

Oliver della Costa Stuenkel is an assistant professor of International Relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, where he coordinates the São Paulo branch of the School of History and Social Science and the executive program in International Relations. Oliver holds a BA from the Universidad de Valencia in Spain, a Master in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he was a McCloy Scholar, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

Featured Publications

Senem Aydın-Düzgit

Senem Aydın-Düzgit is an associate professor of international relations at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Sabancı University and a senior scholar and the research and academic affairs coordinator at the Istanbul Policy Center. She was previously a Jean Monnet Chair in the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. Her main research interests include EU enlargement, EU-Turkey relations, discourse studies, politics of identity, and democratization. She was awarded the 2014 Young Scientist Award by the Turkish Science Academy. She earned her PhD at Vrije Universiteit Brussels and her articles have been published in West European Politics, Cooperation and Conflict, South European Society and Politics, Alternatives, International Relations, and Politique Européenne. She is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), and a board member of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM).

Featured Publications

I Ketut Putra Erawan

I Ketut Putra Erawan is an active scholar and researcher working on democracy issues in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. He is the executive director of Institute for Peace and Democracy, an Indonesian think-tank and the implementing agency of the Bali Democracy Forum. In 2005-2009, Dr. Erawan served as director of the Graduate Program in Political Science at Gadjah Mada University. He was a special advisor for the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia, an expert for the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Indonesia, a member of the Steering Committee for the Australia and Indonesia Governance Research Partnership, a member of the Academic Committee of the Rotary Peace Center at the Chulalongkorn University in Thailand,, and a consultant for the World Bank, World Bank Institute, UNDP, and various Indonesian agencies.

Featured Publications

Andreas E. Feldmann

Andreas E. Feldmann is an associate professor in the departments of Latin American and Latino Studies and Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research specializes in international relations with a focus on Latin America. Among the topics he investigates are human rights, population uprooting, political violence and terrorism, and international cooperation and development. His work has appeared in Latin American Politics and Society, Terrorism and Political Violence, Beyond Law, Revista de Ciencia Política and Migración y Desarrollo. Feldmann has worked as a consultant for the International Development Research Centre and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and served as assistant to the Special Rapporteur on Migrant Workers and Their Families at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2000-2006). He earned a PhD in political science at the University of Notre Dame.

Featured Publications

Tjiurimo Alfredo Hengari

Tjiurimo Alfredo Hengari is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the South African Institute for International Affairs and lectures part-time at the University of the Witwatersrand. Hengari holds a PhD and a master’s degree in political science from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, a master’s in international studies from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, and a bachelor of arts in Politics and Sociology from the University of Namibia. He taught international relations at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and at the Rouen Business School in France. He has previously served as chef de cabinet and senior special assistant to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Namibia and worked as a consultant to the United Nations in Burundi.

Featured Publications

Maiko Ichihara

Maiko Ichihara is an associate professor at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. She earned her PhD in political science from George Washington University and a Master’s degree in political science from Columbia University. Her research focuses on international democracy assistance and civil society. She is currently working on a comparative study of democracy assistance provided by different developed democracies.

Featured Publications

Gilbert M. Khadiagala

Gilbert M. Khadiagala is the Jan Smuts professor of International Relations and head of the department of International Relations at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. His research focuses on politics, security, foreign policy, and conflict resolution in Africa. Professor Khadiagala is currently doing research on South Africa’s democracy promotion efforts, leadership in post-conflict transitions, and mediation of electoral conflicts in Africa.

Featured Publications

  • Gilbert M. Khadiagala, Meddlers or Mediators? African Interveners in Civil Conflicts in Eastern Africa, E.J. Brill, 2007.
  • Gilbert M. Khadiagala and Terrence Lyons (eds.), Conflict Management and African Politics: Ripeness, Bargaining, and Mediation, Routledge Studies in Security and Conflict Management series, 2008.
  • Gilbert M. Khadiagala and Fritz Nganje, “The Evolution of South Africa’s Democracy Promotion in Africa: From Idealism to Pragmatism,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2015.

Sook Jong Lee

Sook Jong Lee is professor of public administration at Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul, South Korea. Since 2008, she has also served as president of the East Asia Institute, a Seoul-based independent think-tank. Her research focuses on civil society, political economy and democracy in Korea and Japan. Her previous positions include Senior Research Fellow at the Sejong Institute, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Professorial Lecturer at the SAIS of Johns Hopkins University. Professor Lee received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University.

Featured Publications

Federico Merke

Federico Merke is professor of international relations and director of undergraduate studies in political science and international relations at San Andrés University, Argentina. He is also a researcher for the National Council for Scientific Research and an associate in the Latin American Program at the IDEAS research center at the London School of Economics. His main research interests include international relations theory, human rights, international security, and Latin American international politics. Merke holds a master of arts in international studies from Warwick University and a PhD from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, Buenos Aires.

Featured Publications

  • Federico Merke, “English School and Constructivism in Latin American Security Studies,” in Routledge Handbook of Latin American Security, ed. Arie Kacowicz and David Mares (forthcoming).
  • Federico Merke, “Neither balance nor bandwagon: South American international society meets Brazil’s rising power,” International Politics 52, no. 2 (2015): 178–192.
  • Federico Merke, “Foreign Policy and Human Rights Advocacy: An Exercise in Measurement and Explanation,” Human Rights Review 14, no. 2 (2015): 131–155.

Tsveta Petrova

Tsveta Petrova is an Associate Research Scholar at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Cornell University in 2011 and then accepted post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard University’s Davis Center and then at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. Petrova’s work focuses on the study of democracy, democratization, and democracy promotion. She is the recipient of several research and teaching awards as well as many fellowships and grants, including the SSRC Dissertation Completion fellowship, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars research grant, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research fellowship, a Smith Richardson Foundation grant, and a Council for European Studies Pre-dissertation fellowship. Her book on democracy export by new democracies is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

Featured Publications

Niranjan Sahoo

Niranjan Sahoo is Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi since 2004. He has published extensively on issues of democracy, human rights, decentralized governance, constitutionalism, and nation-building in South Asia. His current research focuses on the domestic drivers of India’s foreign policy objectives with regard to democracy and human rights in South Asia as well as new social movements and the changing nature of democracy in India. A recipient of 2010 ASIA Fellow Award (funded by The Ford Foundation), Dr. Sahoo recently was a Visiting Asia Fellow at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

Featured Publications

Oliver della Costa Stuenkel

Oliver della Costa Stuenkel is an assistant professor of International Relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, where he coordinates the São Paulo branch of the School of History and Social Science and the executive program in International Relations. Oliver holds a BA from the Universidad de Valencia in Spain, a Master in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he was a McCloy Scholar, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

Featured Publications