Management and employees

Florian Bieber is Professor of Southeast European History and Politics at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz. He coordinates the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG). From 2019 to 2023 he held the Jean Monnet Chair for the Europeanisation of Southeast Europe. He has been a Visiting Fellow or Visiting Professor at Cornell University, New York University, the London School of Economics and the Central European University.

His publications include Debating Nationalism (Bloomsbury 2020), The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans (Palgrave 2020) and Negotiating Unity and Diversity in the European Union (Palgrave 2021, with Roland Bieber) and Pulverfass Balkan (Ch.Links 2023).

He supervises master's theses and dissertations on the countries of the former Yugoslavia, the history of Yugoslavia in the 20th century, as well as issues of nationalism, European integration, democratisation and interethnic relations.

Expertise:
Countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia
Languages: German, English, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin, French
Disciplines: Political science, history.

Bilgin Ayata has been a member of the CSEES team at the University of Graz since October 2020. Prior to that, she taught Political Sociology at the University of Basel. She holds a PhD from John Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA) and an MA from York University (Toronto, Canada). Her research and teaching focuses on migration, infrastructure, citizenship, as well as postcolonial and intersectional studies, with a regional focus on Europe and the MENA region. Ayata has published extensively on forced migration, transnationalism, urban protest, affective politics, memory and violence.

Aris Dougas Chavarria is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for South East European Studies at the University of Graz. His research focuses on migration and borders, new forms of labour and mobility and ethnographic research methods. His geographical interests lie in South and Southeast Europe, the Mediterranean and the wider Eurasian region.

Aris received his MA in Southeast European Studies from the University of Graz and his BA in Global Studies from the University of Pompeu Fabra. He has published two academic articles: a recent one on the attitudes and expectations of Zadar's local authorities towards digital nomads (2024) [hyperlink: journals.openedition.org/netcom/8409] and an earlier one on the housing history of Saint Petersburg (2022) [hyperlink: raco.cat/index.php/Entremons/article/view/405532]. He also completed mobility semesters at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, the University of Rijeka, the University of Sarajevo and the University of Zadar.

Expertise:

• Countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Spain.
• Languages: German, English, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin, French, Greek, Russian, Spanish, Catalan.
• Disciplines: sociology, political science.

Armina Galijaš has been a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz since 2011. Her research interests and teaching activities focus on the contemporary history of Southeast Europe. She studied East and Southeast European History at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where she also worked at the Institute for East and Southeast European History from 2003 to 2005 after graduating. From 2005 to 2011, she was a research assistant and lecturer at the Institute for East European History at the University of Vienna. She was a visiting fellow or visiting professor at the University of Zurich and the University of Zagreb.

She supervises master's theses on the history, culture and politics of the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Expertise: She publishes on the topics of ethnic conflicts, migration, religion, everyday history, social and political history and cultural studies.

• Countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia
• Languages: German, English, Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian
• Disciplines: History

Marko Kmezić (PhD, University of Graz) is a lecturer and senior researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, and editor of the BIEPAG blog. He studied Law at the University of Belgrade, and European Integration and Regionalism at the University of Graz. He is the author of "EU Rule of Law Promotion: Judiciary Reform in the Western Balkans" (Routledge, 2016), and co-editor of "Europeanisation of the Western Balkans: The Failure of Conditionality?" (Palgrave 2020) and "Stagnation and Drift in the Western Balkans" (Peter Lang, 2013).

Emma Lantschner is Associate Professor at the Centre for South East European Studies at the University of Graz. From 2020 to 2024 she was the Italian member of the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe, from 2022-2024 also its Vice-President. She was visiting professor at Rutgers University (Camden, NJ) and the University of Belgrade, researcher at the Institute for Minority Rights of EURAC Research (Bolzano, Italy) and external expert for the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Her publications include Reflexive Governance in EU Equality Law (Oxford University Press, 2021), Soft jurisprudence in minority law (Nomos, 2009) and co-edited commentaries on the ICERD (2020) and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (2015).

She supervises master's theses and dissertations on national and European anti-discrimination law, minority law and related human rights issues.

Expertise:

• Countries: Kosovo, North Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania
• Languages: German, English, Italian, French
• Disciplines: Law, political science.

Claudia Laštro is a PhD candidate at CSEES. She completed her B.A. and M.A. degrees in Political Science, History and Eastern European Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, where she also worked as a research assistant and lecturer. Her current research interests include dominant parties, post-socialist transformation and institutions in authoritarian regimes.

Derya Özkaya is a university assistant with a doctorate at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at Karl-Franzens University. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Her academic research interests focus mainly on the politics of affect and collective emotions, ageing and activism, social and political change through protests and grassroots organisations, urban movements, collective memory, political ethnography and contemporary Turkish politics. She has authored and co-authored articles in The I. B. Tauris Handbook of the Late Ottoman Empire: History and Legacy (Forthcoming 2025), The Affective Dynamics of Mass Protests: Midan Moments and Political Transformation in Egypt and Turkey (Routledge 2024), Urban Neighbourhood Formations: Boundaries, Narrations and Intimacies (Routledge 2020) and Analyzing Affective Societies. Methods and Methodologies (Routledge 2019).

She supervises master's theses on the politics of emotion and affect, collective memory, social movements and political activism.

Expertise:

• Countries: Turkey
• Languages: Turkish, English, German
• Disciplines: Political science. Sociology

Hrvoje Paić is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Centre for South East European Studies. Hrvoje teaches courses at the Centre within the framework of master's programmes and two doctoral programmes. He is the academic coordinator of the Centre's two doctoral training programmes: Doctoral Programme Europeanisation Processes in South-Eastern Europe and Doctoral School Law and Politics. He studied at the University of Zagreb: Faculty of Economics (master's degree) and at the Faculty of Political Science (postgraduate studies), as well as at the University of Vienna, Faculty of Political Science (doctoral studies). Before joining the Centre, he worked as a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna and as a researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Politics OIIP. His teaching and research focuses on political and social theory, research methodology, critical regional studies, critical European studies, postcolonial studies and modern political history with a regional focus on Southeast Europe.

Expertise:

• Countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Austria, Serbia
• Languages: German, English, Croatian
• Disciplines: Political and social theory, critical regional studies, critical European studies, methods in social sciences

Sanja Kmezić is a lecturer and coordinator for the joint Master's programme in Southeast European Studies and the joint Arqus Master's programme in European Studies at CSEES. She holds a B.A. in Law from the University of Belgrade, an MPA from the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD from the University of Graz. Her research interests include decentralisation and subnational finance, governance and development. She has also worked as an international consultant in various international development programmes, focusing on optimising local and regional public services in the Western Balkans. She is co-author of "Fiscal Decentralisation, Local Government and Policy Reversals in Southeastern Europe" (Palgrave, 2018).

Expertise:

• Countries: Western Balkans
• Languages: English, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin, German, Italian
• Disciplines: Public policy, subnational public finance, public law