Carnegie Council

Marlene Spoerri is a political scientist working on democracy promotion, nationalism, social movements, and transitional justice in authoritarian and newly democratic states. Her doctoral research examines the influence of U.S. and EU foreign assistance on democracy and political party development in post-conflict and post-communist states, and her forthcoming manuscript is entitled "Engineering Revolution? Aiding Parties and Bringing Down Dictators in the former Yugoslavia."

While completing her PhD at the University of Amsterdam, Spoerri served as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University's Harriman Institute and Central European University's Department of Political Science. Her research on transitional justice and democracy promotion in the Western Balkans has won awards in international conferences and has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Democratization, Europe-Asia Studies, and the Journal of International Relations and Development.

As Carnegie Council contributing editor, Spoerri writes regularly for the Council's weekly Global Ethics Corner and also posts occasional articles.

Prior to pursuing her doctoral studies, Spoerri spent several years in the former Yugoslavia, where she worked as program assistant for the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a transatlantic grantmaking foundation based in Belgrade, Serbia. She also worked at the Humanitarian Law Center—a leading NGO working to uphold transitional justice—and completed an internship at the U.S. Embassy in Croatia.

Resources by this Author:

• Europe's Far Right Goes Mainstream: The Failure of Multiculturalism?
• Why Are We Surprised at Egypt's Backlash against Foreign NGOs?
• A Look at Income Inequality in the United States (Transcript)
• A Look at Income Inequality in the United States (Audio)
• The Ethics of a Justice Imposed: Ratko Mladic's Arrest and the Costs of Conditionality
• From Resistance to Revolution and Back Again: What Egyptian Youth Can Learn From Otpor When Its Activists Leave Tahrir Square