Vivien A. Schmidt

Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Professor of International Relations in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, and Professor of Political Science at Boston University, as well as Founding Director of BU’s Center for the Study of Europe.

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. Her 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 a dozen 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 2021 Best Book Award of the American Political Science Association’s Ideas, Knowledge, Politics section and the 2019-2020 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.

Schmidt is Honorary Professor at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome.  She has also been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at numerous institutions, including the Sciences Po in Paris,  the Free University of Berlin, the Free University of Brussels, the European University Institute, Copenhagen Business School, Cambridge University, Oxford University, and Harvard University, where she is also co-chair of the Study Group on the European Union.   She is past head of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) and sits on a number of advisory boards, including the Wissenschaft Zentrum Berlin, the Vienna Institute for Peace, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (Brussels), and the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute.

My newest book is now available from Oxford University Press.

Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone

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