Stephanie Dornschneider-Elkink

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. My research is based in the field of conflict studies, with a focus on the psychological micro-foundations of political dissent. To collect data, I conduct ethnographic interviews with political dissidents. I then apply computational methods to identify the reasoning processes expressed during the interviews. This approach adds novel insight into the deliberations underlying political behaviour, which routinely deviate from rational choice principles or assumptions derived from large-n studies.

Most of my research focuses on resistance behaviour in the Arab world. Participants in this behaviour are typically overlooked by Western policymakers and often repressed by their domestic rulers. In spite of their exposure to high risks, they engage in numerous resistance efforts at both collective and non-collective levels. Typically, participants in resistance behaviour in autocratic settings are hard to access. My work draws on field research to collect first-hand accounts by which they explain their behaviour.

Before joining UCD, I was a lecturer at the University of Buckingham (2015-2016), COFUND Junior Research Fellow at Durham University (2014-2015), and a post- and pre-doctoral fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service at the University of Oxford (2013) and Stanford University (2011-2012).

I hold a PhD in International Relations and Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (IHEID), an MA in International Relations and a Diploma in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo. I also hold a Magister Artium in American literature from Universitaet Hamburg with minors in Journalism and Philosophy. In addition, I completed the undergraduate coursework (Grundstudium) in French Literature and Basic Law.