Appointment: Hannah Smidt

Prof. Dr. Hannah Smidt studied political science, completing her Bachelor's degree (2010) and Master's degree (2012) at the University of Mannheim. In 2017, she was awarded her PhD from University College London with the topic "UN Peacekeeping and Electoral Violence in Conflict-Affected Countries". She subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and at the Institute of African Affairs at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies. From 2019 to 2022, she was Head of the "International Security, Peace and Conflict" field of study at the University of Zurich. Since 2022, she has been an Assistant Professor of Political Science with an orientation towards International Governance and Organisation (tenure track) at the University of St.Gallen.

Research on repression targeting civil society organisations and international peace operations

In her research, Prof. Dr. Hannah Smidt examines the repression targeting civil society organisations as well as the effects of international peace operations. Her research combines in-depth country case knowledge—including field research in places such as Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, and Mali—with robust quantitative methods to estimate causal effects. She has collected several multi-country datasets, that are widely used in the research community, for example, the Peacekeeping Mandates (PEMA) dataset.

Prof. Dr. Smidt's research has been published in leading journals, including the “American Political Science Review”, “American Journal of Political Science”, the “British Journal of Political Science”, and “Comparative Political Studies”. She has received numerous awards, including the Dina Zinnes Award from the International Studies Association and the Latsis Prize. Her research has been funded by grants from the Swedish Research Council, the University of St Gallen's Basic Research Fund and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), among others. She is also a consultant for governments and international organizations, including the UN.

Linking academic debates with current politics in teaching

Prof. Dr. Hannah Smidt teaches courses in German and English at Bachelor's, Master's PhD level, for example on civilian peace missions, political violence, the international governance of conflict management, research design and quantitative methods. In her teaching, she draws on her own mixed-methods research and always attempts to help students engage with different research perspectives and to carry out their own research projects. With her background in policy-oriented analysis, she encourages students to link academic debates with current politics.