Researchers
The GenDip program is led by Professor Ann Towns, Wallenberg Academy Fellow, and consists of a research group at the Department of Political Science of the University of Gothenburg as well as an international research network, the GenDip Network.
Ann Towns
Ann Towns, Principal Investigator of the GenDip program, is professor of political science in the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg. She holds a prestigious Wallenberg Academy Fellowship since 2013, and her work with gender and diplomacy was awarded a Bertha Lutz Prize from the International Studies Association in 2018. She received her PhD in political science, with a PhD minor in feminist studies, from the University of Minnesota (2004). She has since held faculty positions at the University of Delaware (2007-2010) and University West (2010-2014), before she joined the University of Gothenburg in 2014. She was a visiting scholar at Georgetown University in 2017-2018.
Professor Towns’ research probes questions about norms, international hierarchies and resistance in international politics, generally with a focus on gender. She is currently conducting a large research project on the intersection of international hierarchies and gender norms and practices in diplomacy, an inter-state institution that has long been dominated by men but where more women have entered within the past decade. As part of this project, she has carried out field work among diplomats in D.C. during 2017-2018 and will do so among diplomats in Stockholm during 2019. Her work on gender and diplomacy has been awarded a 6-year Wallenberg Academy Fellowship by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, as well as a 5-year grant and a 3-year grant from the Swedish Research Council. In 2018, her work on gender and diplomacy was awarded the Bertha Lutz Prize from the International Studies Association.
Towns is the author of Women and States: Norms and Hierarchies in International Society (2010, Cambridge University Press) and co-editor with Karin Aggestam of a volume entitled Gendering Diplomacy and International Cooperation (2018, Palgrave MacMillan). Her research has also appeared in International Organization, European Journal of International Relations, Millennium, Party Politics, NORA, Cooperation & Conflict and Women & Politics, and more. Towns is associate editor of International Studies Quarterly and a member of the editorial boards of Cambridge Studies in Gender and Politics, Politics and Internasjonal Politikk.
Katarzyna Jezierska
Katarzyna Jezierska is deputy director of the GenDip program and associate professor in political science. She received her PhD in political science from the Postgraduate School in Conditions of Democracy, Örebro University (2011) and did her postdoc (2012-2016), funded by the Swedish Research Council, in the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg. Since 2018, she works as a senior lecturer at the International Programme in Politics and Economics, University West.
Jezierska’s research focuses on the role of civil society in upholding and/or dismantling liberal democracy in Central Europe, including how civil society organizations (CSOs) interact with diplomats and try to shape foreign policy, as well as how domestic and international actors attempt to steer CSOs in different directions. She has received three larger external grants: 1. on intersections between frontline diplomats and civil society in host states. In this project, together with Ann Towns we studied how formal foreign policy is implemented and adapted in contexts where norms collide. The so-called illiberal turn in Central Europe provided an interesting laboratory for looking at the role of diplomacy and the Swedish feminist foreign policy in entering the battle over civil society (Swedish Research Council, 2019-2023); 2. on policy advice and policy knowledge production in illiberal contexts. In the project, together with Adrienne Sörbom and Andrea Krizsán, we explored what role think tanks play in such domestic contexts (Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 2020-2023); 3. on knowledge production and advocacy in the international arena. In this current project I study how CSOs influence the orientation and content of anti-gender and feminist foreign policy (Swedish Research Council, 2023-2025). In 2022, I was also co-writing a report on the implementation of the Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy commissioned by the Expert Group for Aid Studies.
Jezierska has co-edited Resourceful Civil Society: Navigating the Changing Landscapes of Civil Society Organizations (Routledge 2022, with Zhanna Kravchenko and Lisa Kings) and Democracy in Dialogue. Dialogue in Democracy (Routledge 2015, with Leszek Koczanowicz). Her research was also published in Review of International Studies, International Affairs, Cooperation and Conflict, Democratization, Governance, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Place Branding & Public Diplomacy, Politics and Governance, Europe-Asia Studies, Journal of Civil Society, Journal of Deliberative Democracy, VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, and East European Politics and Societies.
Haley McEwen
Haley McEwen is a postdoctoral researcher with the Gender and Diplomacy programme.
She completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She holds an MPhil in Critical Diversity Studies from the University of Cape Town and a BA in Social Relations from Michigan State University. Prior to joining GenDip as a postdoctoral researcher, she was a Senior Researcher at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Her current project with GenDip has emerged from the findings of her doctoral research and is focusing on the emergence of ‘anti-feminist’, or ‘anti-gender’, diplomacy. This project examines how anti-gender actors are influencing diplomacy, and how these actors are using diplomacy strategies to gain influence and advance anti-feminist agendas. This project involves investigations into multilateral and bilateral diplomacy arenas.
Haley’s research has been published in several international journals, including Critical African Studies, Culture, Health & Sexuality, Development Southern Africa, and Critical Philosophy of Race. She recently published a book based on her doctoral research, The U.S. Christian Right and Pro-Family Politics in 21st Century Africa.
Haley serves as a mentor for GenDip’s visiting student researchers and interns.
Monika de Silva
Monika de Silva, PhD candidate in the GenDip program, started working at the Department of Political Science of the University of Gothenburg in September 2021.
She received an Advanced MA in EU International Relations and Diplomacy at the College of Europe (2020) and a Master of Law degree in the framework of interdisciplinary studies at the University of Warsaw (2019). She graduated with honors from both programs and received prestigious awards for her master’s theses from the European External Action Service, Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Red Cross. Her professional experience includes work at diplomatic headquarters and missions (European External Action Service, Council of Europe, Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs) as well as project management and legal work in NGO sector.
De Silva’s PhD dissertation will explore the role of diplomacy in international gender politics. The polarization on gender issues, preceded by the emergence of feminist foreign policy and intensification of anti-gender stances, makes the work of diplomats in this domain particularly interesting. The current context allows to ask questions about the role of diplomacy in overcoming and/or creating polarization as well as shaping international gender norms.
De Silva’s research interests also include human rights policies, EU external action, and legal aspects in international relations. Her previous work explored such topics as decisions to enter human rights conventions, gender segregation as discrimination, domestic violence as a prerequisite for refugee status, and status of a diplomatic family.
Sindre Gade Viksand
Sindre Gade Viksand works as a postdoctoral research fellow in the GenDip program. He received his PhD in political science from Lund University in 2023, and holds an MA in political science from the University of Oslo, an M.Sc. in international relations theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in political science from Adelphi University. He has also worked at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the International Law and Policy Institute (ILPI), and has served as an editorial assistant and book review editor at Cooperation and Conflict.
Viksand’s research centres on international theory and the history of international thought. His doctoral thesis, A World of Persons, explored how the language of persons has set and still sets conditions for international thought. His research in GenDip builds on this work in investigating the role of this language in diplomatic representation and representativeness. He has previously published in Review of International Studies.
Birgitta Niklasson
Birgitta Niklasson, researcher in the GenDip program, is an associate professor and a senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. After having received her PhD from that same department in 2005, she did her postdoc at the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score) at Stockholm University, a project that was financed by the Swedish Research Council (VR). The postdoc was followed by the three year-long research project “The Government’s Gatekeepers”, for which Niklasson was the Principal Investigator. The project was financed by the Swedish Research Council For Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE).
Niklasson’s research focuses on issues related to gender and careers in political and administrative contexts. She takes a particular interest in the way networks, politicization, and different kinds of resistance influence women’s career development. Her current research project aims at studying to what extent the work of Swedish ambassadors is gendered and what consequences this might have for inter-state relations. Niklasson also does research on the degree of politicization of the civil service and how a growing politicization may affect the policy process.
Niklasson’s work has appeared journals such as Public Administration, West European Politics, and Foreign Policy Analysis.
