Vivien A. Schmidt

Vivien A. Schmidt received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr and her Masters and PhD from the University of Chicago, and attended Sciences Po in Paris.  Schmidt’s research focuses on European political economy and institutions, on democracy and the challenges of populism in the US and Europe, and on the importance of ideas and discourse in political analysis (discursive institutionalism).  She has published thirteen books, over 300 scholarly journal articles or chapters in books, and numerous policy briefs and comments.  Her latest book is Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone (2020)—recipient of the Best Book Award of the American Political Science Association’s Ideas, Knowledge, Politics section and Honorable Mention for the Best Book Award of the European Union Studies Association.  Earlier books include Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy (co-edited, 2013), Democracy in Europe (2006)—named in 2015 by the European Parliament as one of the ‘100 Books on Europe to Remember’—and The Futures of European Capitalism (2002). Among her honors, awards, and fellowships are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the European Union Studies Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Brussels (ULB), the Belgian Franqui Interuniversity Chair for foreign scholars, a Rockefeller Bellagio Center Residency, and Fulbright Fellowships to France and the UK. She was also recently named a Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor and elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Schmidt is currently Visiting Fellow in the Schuman Center at the European University Institute in Florence, Honorary Professor at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, and Senior Fellow at the Zoe Institute in Cologne and Brussels.  She has previously been Professor of Political Science and Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston as well as visiting professor or visiting scholar at numerous institutions, including Sciences Po in Paris,  Free University of Berlin, Free University of Brussels, European University Institute, Cambridge University, Oxford University, and Harvard University, where she was also co-chair of the European Union Study Group from 2008 to 2023. She is past head of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) and sits on many editorial boards and on a number of advisory boards, including the Wissenschaft Zentrum Berlin (2014-2022), the Vienna Institute for Peace, and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (Brussels). Her current work, supported by a Guggenheim fellowship, focuses on the ‘rhetoric of discontent,’ through a transatlantic investigation of the populist revolt against globalization and Europeanization.  She is also completing her book: The Power of Ideas and Discourse in Political Analysis: A Discursive Institutionalist Perspective.