Sonja Grimm - EDP Network

Sonja Grimm

EDP Network Member

Sonja has been the Chair of International Relations & European Studies at the Institute of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Würzburg since the beginning of the 2023/24 winter semester. Under her leadership as the lead researcher and co-coordinator of the EMBRACE project, 14 international partner institutions are researching authoritarian resilience and autocratization in the European neighborhood through an interdisciplinary, cross-methodological assessment of blockades and drivers of democratization in 12 case study countries from Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, the Western Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East.

Previously, she was an Academic Councilor at the Department of Politics and Public Law, Chair of International Politics, at the University of Konstanz and held the Chair of Political Science at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Basel. Sonja’s research focuses on democratization, state-building, and transition studies in post-conflict societies and fragile states, as well as international democracy promotion, development cooperation, and EU integration. In democratization and transition research, she has specialized in democratization processes in post-conflict and post-communist societies, as well as the role of external actors in peacebuilding processes and international democracy promotion in the field of international relations.

Her research projects deal with European democracy promotion in the Western Balkan states, the effectiveness of international democracy promotion, and the international politics of fragile states. In a former research project, she analyzed the consequences of the Arab Spring in the MENA region. Her cumulative habilitation thesis deals with “Research on International Democracy Promotion in Post-Conflict Societies and Fragile States.” Sonja taught various courses in bachelor’s and master’s programs in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. Additionally, Sonja was a visiting researcher and guest lecturer at the Universities of Gothenburg, New Caledonia, Nottingham, Oxford, and Prague. Before her work in Konstanz, Sonja worked as a research associate at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center in the “Democracy and Democratization” department (Director: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Merkel), taught at Humboldt University in Berlin, and obtained her doctorate from the Institute of Social Sciences at Humboldt University. Her dissertation “Erzwungene Demokratie. Politische Neuordnung unter externer Aufsicht in Nachkriegsgesellschaften” (Enforced Democracy. Political Reorganization under External Supervision in Post-War Societies) addresses the role of external actors in building democratic institutions after civil wars and military interventions. Sonja Grimm studied political science, history, and art history from 1998 to 2004 at Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Sciences Po, Paris.

More about Sonja Grimm here.

Contact: sonja.grimm [at] external-democracy-promotion.eu