Zsuzsa Csergő
Professor | Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies
She/Her
PhD, MA (George Washington)
Political Studies
Comparative Politics, International Relations
Professor | Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies
Research Interests
Nationalism, the politics of ethnicity, challenges to democracy, minority democratic agency, Central and East European politics, the politics of European integration
Zsuzsa Csergő would be interested in supervising graduate students in the areas of: nationalism, the politics of ethnicity, minority politics, Central and East European politics, issues of European integration.
Brief Biography
Zsuzsa Csergő (PhD in Political Science, The George Washington University, 2000) is The Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University. She specializes in the study of nationalism and contemporary challenges to democracy, with particular expertise on Central and Eastern Europe. Before joining the Queen’s faculty, she 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 2013-2020, she was President of the , the largest international scholarly association in the field of nationalism and ethnicity studies. She currently serves as Director of the association’s online initiative, “.”
Dr. Csergő's research contributes to the understanding of tensions between nationalism and democracy in multiethnic societies. Her articles about nationalism, majority-minority relations, kin-state politics, and minority democratic agency in the EU context have appeared in leading journals in her field, including Perspectives on Politics, Foreign Policy, Publius, Nations and Nationalism, Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, East European Politics and Societies, and other venues. She is the author of Talk of the Nation: Language and Conflict in Romania and Slovakia (Cornell University Press, 2007), co-editor and co-author of collaborative volumes (books and special issues) focused on Europeanization and minority political agency, and Central and East European politics. She is currently writing a book about the sources of minority democratic agency in majoritarian states, based on comparative research on six linguistic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe (Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia, Poles in Lithuania, and Russophones in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania).
Dr. Csergő leads the comparative Minority Institutions Database, which officially launched in March, 2023. She is also the Principal Investigator of a collaborative research project entitled “” (funded by SSHRC), focused on Montreal, Brussels, Belfast, and Vilnius. Additionally, Csergő is a General Editor of the , and a member of , hosted at the University of Glasgow.
Dr. 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 from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy in 2006, the 2005 from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the , 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 . During the 2010-11 academic year, she was a guest scholar at the in Vienna, Austria. In May 2016, she was a guest scholar at the Institute for Minority Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary. From 2019-2020, she served as a at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz.
From January-March 2023, Csergő was a visiting fellow at the at George Washington University (Washington, DC), and from May-July 2023 a visiting expert at the in Flensburg, Germany. From January-June 2024, she is a guest scholar at the in Vienna, Austria.
Teaching
For detailed information about political studies courses and instructors, please refer to the Undergraduate and Graduate pages.
Service (2024/2025)
- The Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies
- Appointments Committee
- Departmental Committee
- Field Convenor (Comparative)
- Renewal, Tenure & Promotion (RTP) Committee
Selected Publications
Books
(5th edition). 2021. Co-edited with Daina Eglitis and Paula Pickering. Rowman & Littlefield.
. 2018. Routledge. Co-edited with Ada Regelmann.
Special Issues
2018. Special issue in Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics, vol. 3 no.4, co-edited with Ognen Vangelov and Balázs Vizi.
. 2017. Special issue co-edited with Ada Charlotte-Regelmann. Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 64 no.5.
Journal Articles
2019. Ethnopolitics vol. 17 no. 5: 541-545.
2017. Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 64 no.5: 291-310, co-authored with Ada-Charlotte Regelmann.
2017. Publius: The Journal of Federalism vol. 47 no.4: 491-521, co-authored with Philippe Roseberry and Stefan Wolff.
2013. Europe-Asia Studies vol. 65 no.5: 889-911.
2011. Nations and Nationalism, vol.17 no.1:85-107 , co-authored with Kevin Deegan-Krause
2008. Nations and Nationalism, vol. 14 no. 2:393-398
2004. Perspectives on Politics, vol. 2 no.1: 21-37, co-authored with James M. Goldgeier
2002. East European Politics and Societies, vol. 16 no. 1: 1-29.
Book Chapters
2021. In Csergő, Zsuzsa, Daina S. Egletis and Paula M. Pickering, eds., Central and East European Politics: Changes and Challenges. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers: 3-35, co-authored with Daina S. Egletis and Paula M. Pickering.
2021. In Csergő, Zsuzsa, Daina S. Egletis and Paula M. Pickering, eds., Central and East European Politics: Changes and Challenges. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers: 595-608, co-authored with Daina S. Egletis and Paula M. Pickering.
2021. In Csergő, Zsuzsa, Daina S. Egletis and Paula M. Pickering, eds., Central and East European Politics: Changes and Challenges. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers: 67-98, co-authored with Jason Wittenberg.
2013. In Tristan Mabry et al, eds. Divided Nations and European Integration (University of Pennsylvania Press, co-authored with James M. Goldgeier.
Policy Papers
“The Impact of Russia’s War on Ukraine on Russophone Minorities in the Baltic States.” 2022. BEAR Network, April 30, 2022; co-authored with Kristina Kallas.
“The Problem of Alienated Russophone Minorities Caught between the EU and Russia.” 2021. BEAR Network, May 18, 2021.
Research Highlights
Research Fellowships
Visiting Expert, , Flensburg, Germany. April-July 2023.
Visiting Fellow, at George Washington University, US. January-March 2023.
, Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz. 2019-2021.
Awards
The Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies, 2023.
Distinguished Alumni award, Department of Political Science, George Washington University, 2013.
A Comparative Minority Institutions Database
The Comparative Minority Institutions Database (MID) provides publicly accessible data about organizational activities of ethnic minority communities living in countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Website: /minority-institutions-database/
The Politics of Complex Diversity in Contested Cities, Principle Investigator
The project examines how ethnic newcomers assert political agency in historically divided cities; exploring how this political agency differs from that found in cities that are not historically contested.
Website:
Virtual ASN, Director
is a global online academic platform linking scholars, students, and members of the broader public interested in questions of nationalism and ethnicity with a regional focus on Europe and Eurasia. Virtual ASN brings together and fosters a worldwide community: From a Distance. Together.
Website:
Central and East European Politics: Changes and Challenges, Fifth Edition
Zsuzsa Csergő, Daina S. Eglitis, and Paula M. Pickering, Eds. 2021: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
This provides a comprehensive introduction to Central and Eastern Europe, offering a reader-friendly overview of the globally and regionally significant changes and challenges facing the region. The book opens with thematic issue-based chapters, which present the contentious political debates of the region, followed by a series of case-study chapters, which provide a strong historical and contextual foundation.