Zsuzsa Cserg艖

Zsuzsa Cserg艖

Professor | Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies

She/Her

PhD, MA聽(George Washington)

Political Studies

Comparative Politics, International Relations

Professor | Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Nationalism and Democracy Studies

csergo@queensu.ca

(613) 533-6234

Mackintosh-Corry Hall, C402

People Directory Affiliation Category

Research Interests

Nationalism, the politics of ethnicity, challenges to democracy, minority democratic agency, Central and East European politics, the politics of European integration

Zsuzsa Cserg艖 would be interested in supervising graduate students in the areas of: 鈥嬧嬧嬧媙ationalism, the politics of ethnicity, minority politics, Central and East European politics, issues of European integration.

Brief Biography

Zsuzsa Cserg艖 (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鈥檚 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鈥檚 faculty, she was Assistant Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Women鈥檚 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鈥檚 online initiative, 鈥.鈥

Dr. Cserg艖'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. Cserg艖 leads the comparative Minority Institutions Database, which officially launched in March, 2023. She is also the Principal Investigator of a collaborative research project entitled 鈥溾 (funded by SSHRC), focused on Montreal, Brussels, Belfast, and Vilnius. Additionally, Cserg艖 is a General Editor of the , and a member of , hosted at the University of Glasgow.

Dr. Cserg艖 has received a number of prestigious awards and fellowships, including a Distinguished Alumni award from the George Washington University鈥檚 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, Cserg艖 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 Bal谩zs 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 Cserg艖, 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 Cserg艖, 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 Cserg艖, 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

鈥淭he Impact of Russia鈥檚 War on Ukraine on Russophone Minorities in the Baltic States.鈥 2022. BEAR Network, April 30, 2022; co-authored with Kristina Kallas.

鈥淭he Problem of Alienated Russophone Minorities Caught between the EU and Russia.鈥 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.

Comparative Minority Institutions Database

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 Cserg艖, 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.