Natasha Wunsch

Natasha Wunsch is Assistant Professor in Political Science/European Integration at Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE) and a Senior Researcher with the Center for Comparative and International Studies at ETH Zurich. She is also a member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG). Prior to joining the CEE, Natasha was an ETH Postdoctoral Fellow with the European Politics Group at ETH Zurich (2017-2019) and an Ernst Mach Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for South-East European Studies at the University of Graz (2016-2017). She holds a PhD in Political Science from University College London.

Natasha’s research interests lie at the intersection between European Politics and Comparative Politics. She is interested in how EU integration shapes the political transformation process of aspiring member states and how, in turn, democratic backsliding and the rise of illiberal trends among member states affect cooperation at the EU level. Moreover, she directs the research project “Democratic Backsliding in Eastern Europe: Sequence, Strategies, Citizens,” funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation from 2019-2023 at the Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich.

Since 2018, Natasha has been a member of the executive committee of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Standing Group on the European Union. She was elected Deputy Chair in September 2020.

Selection of publications

Wunsch, Natasha (2020) Protecting the Rule of Law in the EU: Germany’s Council Presidency must secure both the EU’s budget and its credibility. BerlinPerspectives 4, Institut for European Politics, September.

Richter, Solveig and Natasha Wunsch (2019): Money, Power, Glory: Linkages between EU conditionality and state capture in the Western Balkans, Journal of European Public Policy.

Wunsch, Natasha (2018). Transnational learning and civil society empowerment in the EU enlargement process, Journal of Common Market Studies.

Wunsch, Natasha (2018). EU Enlargement and Civil Society in the Western Balkans: From Mobilisation to Empowerment, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics).

To know more

• natasha.wunsch@sciencespo.fr
• Tel: +33149543851