Zsuzsa Csergő

Zsuzsa Csergő

Professor

she/her

PhD, MA (George Washington)

Political Studies

Comparative Politics, International Relations

Arts and Science

csergo@queensu.ca

(613) 533-6234

Mackintosh-Corry Hall, Room C402

Fax:  (613) 533-6848

People Directory Affiliation Category

Research Interests

Profile

Nationalism, the politics of ethnicity, democratization, Central and East European politics, European integration, the politics of language use

Brief Biography

Professor Zsuzsa Csergő (PhD in Political Science, The George Washington University, 2000) specializes in the study of nationalism in contemporary European politics, with particular expertise on post-communist Central and Eastern Europe.  Before joining the Queen’s faculty, Dr. Csergő was Assistant Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Women’s Leadership Program in U.S. and International Politics at the George Washington University.  From 2013-2019, she was President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN), the leading international scholarly association in the field of nationalism and ethnicity studies.  Currently, she is Director of the association’s online initiative “Virtual ASN.”

Csergő’s book about majority-minority conflict over language use in Romania and Slovakia was published by Cornell University Press in 2007.  Her articles have appeared in Perspectives on Politics, Foreign Policy, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Nations and Nationalism, Europe-Asia Studies, East European Politics and Societies, Problems of Post-Communism, and other scholarly journals and edited volumes.  She is co-editor of two recently published special issues focused on the problems of Europeanization and minority inclusion, published in major scholarly journals.  Csergő is currently writing a comparative book about the emergence of minority political agency in the EU framework, focusing on six large ethno-linguistic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe.  She is also the Principal Investigator of a collaborative research project entitled “The Politics of complex diversity in contested cities” (funded by SSHRC), focused on Montreal, Brussels, Belfast, and Vilnius.  She is an Academic Coordinator in the Jean Monnet Network Grant entitled “Between Europe and Russia” (funded by the EU, jointly hosted by McGill University and the University of Montreal), which brings together 25 scholars from 11 universities and six countries.  Additionally, Csergő is a General Editor of the European Yearbook of Minority Issues, and a member of KINPOL: Observatory on Kin-State Policies, hosted at the University of Glasgow.

Csergő has received a number of prestigious awards and fellowships, including a Distinguished Alumni award from the George Washington University’s Department of Political Science in 2013, the Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy in 2006, the 2005 Sherman Emerging Scholar Award from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the American Council of Learned Societies and Social Science Research Council, the George Hoffman Foundation, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. During the 2010-11 academic year, she was a guest scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, Austria. In May 2016, she was a guest scholar at the Institute for Minority Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary. Since September 2019, she is a Marie-Skłodowska Curie Fellow at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz.

Teaching

POLS 440 Politics of Ethnicity and Nationalism (Fall 2022)

POLS 832 Theories and Politics of Nationalism (Fall 2022)

For more details on political studies courses, please refer to the Undergraduate and Graduate pages. 

Service (2022/2023)

  • Appointments Committee
  • Workload Committee

Selected Publications

Talk of the Nation: Language and Conflict in Romania and Slovakia (Cornell University Press, 2007)

Europeanization and Changes in Minority Inclusion in Central and Eastern Europe. 2018.  Special issue in Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics, vol. 3 no.4, co-edited with Ognen Vangelov and Balázs Vizi.

Europeanization and Minority Political Action in Central and Eastern Europe. 2017.  Special issue co-edited with Ada Charlotte-Regelmann. Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 64 no.5.

“Europeanization and Collective Rationality in Minority Voting.” 2017. Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 64 no.5: 291-310, co-authored with Ada-Charlotte Regelmann.

“Institutional Outcomes of Territorial Contestation: Lessons from Post-Communist Europe.” 2017.  Publius: The Journal of Federalism vol. 47 no.4: 491-521, co-authored with Philippe Roseberry and Stefan Wolff.

“Kosovo and the Framing of Non-Secessionist Self-Government Claims in Romania.” 2013. Europe-Asia Studies vol. 65 no.5: 889-911.

“Kin-state Activism in Hungary, Romania, and Russia:  The Politics of Ethnic Demography.” 2013. In Tristan Mabry et al, eds. Divided Nations and European Integration (University of Pennsylvania Press, co-authored with James M. Goldgeier.

“Liberalism and Cultural Claims in Central and Eastern Europe: Toward a Pluralist Balance.” 2011. Nations and Nationalism, vol.17 no.1:85-107 , co-authored with Kevin Deegan-Krause

"Do we need a language shift in the study of nationalism and ethnicity?  Reflections on Rogers Brubaker's critical scholarly agenda:  Review essay." 2008. Nations and Nationalism, vol. 14 no. 2:393-398

“Nationalist Strategies and European Integration.” 2004. Perspectives on Politics, vol. 2 no.1: 21-37, co-authored with James M. Goldgeier

“Beyond Ethnic Division:  Majority-Minority Debate about the Post-Communist State in Romania and Slovakia.” 2002. East European Politics and Societies, vol. 16 no. 1: 1-29.