Dr Corina Lacatus, BA (Bucharest), MA (American University in DC), MA (UCLA), PhD (LSE), PhD (UCLA)

Profile

Corina’s research is at the intersection of International Relations and Comparative Politics but also engages actively with Political Communication scholarship. Writ large, she is a scholar of international co-operation and global governance, focusing on the influence that international organisations like the United Nations and the European Union have on domestic institutions, politics, and societies. So far, her research has explored these dynamics in different areas of policy-making and practice – the governance of care for migrants, social exclusion and vulnerability, south-to-north and south-to-south migration, human rights institutions, peace agreements and human rights after conflict, and corruption control. In addition, she has developed a research agenda in Political Communication, focusing on the formation and strategic uses of electoral rhetoric to advance populist political agendas. She has carried out analyses of large bodies of social media data (Twitter-based) and other Internet-based data – blogs, press releases, rally speeches and video material.

Before joining Queen Mary, she worked at Queen’s University Belfast, University of Edinburgh, London School of Economics, American University in Washington DC, University of Illinois, and University of California Los Angeles. She also has two years of practice experience in the field of International Development, working in global migration and global health at different international development organisations in Washington DC.

Research

Research Interests:

Corina has three active programmes of research that speak to political scholarship in Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Communication.

Human rights governance:

Her book, The Strength of Our Commitments (Chicago University Press, 2024), investigates the strength and effectiveness of national human rights institutions in Europe and beyond. In a world where both human rights legislation and the institutions mandated to implement it increasingly come under pressure, understanding the unique resilience of national human rights institutions is of great value to policymakers in national governments, human rights practitioners in charities and international organisations, and academics. Additionally, she has published widely on different aspects of human rights governance in Europe and globally.

Social inclusion, migration, and the governance of care:

Her decade-long research programme on social exclusion and migration began with the book, The (In)visibility Complex (Stockholm University Press, 2008) in which she addresses questions of identity and artistic representations of the migrant experience in Sweden. She recently completed a research project on the governance of care for irregular migrants, funded by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust.

Political communication:

Corina’s research agenda in Political Communication focuses on the strategic uses of political communication to advance populist political agendas and shape political regimes in both the Global South (Sub-Saharan Africa) and the Global North (USA and UK). She co-edited Populist Communication and Performative Leadership (Palgrave 2023), where together with Gustav Meibauer and Georg Löfflmann she explored the key roles that populist communication can play in advancing foreign policy-making and international diplomacy around the world.

Selected research funding and awards:

2025 Research Fellow, Gothenburg University, Quality of Government Institute

2022 – 2024 British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant

2020 – 2021 Hillary Rodham Clinton Fellow, Queen’s University Belfast

2017 – 2020 Career Development Fellow, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Edinburgh

2019 Best paper presented at the EUSA conference 2019 (with Ulrich Sedelmeier)

2018 – 2019 Strategic Research Support Fund, University of Edinburgh, School of Social and Political Sciences (with Shaun Bevan)

2017 – 2018 Hayter Field Research Award, Centre for African Studies, University of Edinburgh

2017 – 2018 Strategic Research Support Fund, University of Edinburgh, School of Social and Political Sciences

2016 Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research Fellowship, Syracuse University Maxwell School

2013 – 2015 Economics and Social Research Council Doctoral Training Award

2010 – 2012 The Hall of Nations Fellowship, School of International Service, American University Washington DC

Publications

Human rights governance

Corina Lacatus The Strength of Our Commitments: National human rights institutions in Europe and beyond (Chicago University Press, 2024)

Corina Lacatus “Balancing Legalism and Pragmatism: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Human Rights Language in Peace Agreements”, Journal of Human Rights Practice, Volume 16, Issue 1, February 2024, Pages 325–34

Corina Lacatus and Valentina Carraro “National Human Rights Institutions: Independent actors in global human rights governance?” International Affairs, 99:3, 2023

Corina Lacatus “Regional governance and networked regulatory stewardship: the case of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions,” International Relations 36:2, 2021

Corina Lacatus and Ulrich Sedelmeier “Does monitoring without enforcement make a difference? The EU and anti-corruption policies in Bulgaria and Romania after accession,” Journal of European Public Policy, 27:8, 2020

Corina Lacatus and Kathryn Nash “Peace Agreements and the Institutionalisation of Human Rights: A multi-level analysis,” International Journal of Human Rights, 24:6, 2020

Corina Lacatus “Explaining Institutional Strength: The case of national human rights institutions in Europe and its Neighbourhood,” Journal of European Public Policy, 26:11, 2019

Corina Lacatus “Human Rights Networks and Regulatory Stewardship: An analysis of a multi-level network of human rights commissions in the United Kingdom,” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 20:4, November 2018

Social exclusion, inequality, and the governance of care

Corina Lacatus The (In)visibility Complex. Negotiating Otherness in Contemporary Sweden, Stockholm University Press, 2008

Corina Lacatus “Culture Wars as Clashes of Identities” Arts and International Affairs, 2:2, 2017

Corina Lacatus “Sovereignty as Performance and Video Art: A Study of Citizenship Between International Relations and Artistic Representation”, in Maximilian Mayer, Douglas R. Howland and Elizabeth Lillehoj, Art and Sovereignty, Routledge, 2017

Corina Lacatus “Visual identities of the Other: Performance Art and the Public Sphere in Contemporary Sweden,” Scandinavian Studies, 81:4, 2008

Corina Lacatus “What is a blatte? Migration and Ethnic Identity in Contemporary Sweden,” The Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research, 1, 2007

Corina Lacatus “www.NOT_SO_FOREIGN_SWEDEN.com: Representing Immigrant Identity in Swedish Literature and Visual Arts,” International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, 5, 2005

Populist communication

Corina Lacatus, Gustav Meibauer, and Georg Löfflmann (Eds.)Political Communication and Performative Leadership: Populism in International Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023

Corina Lacatus and Emmanuelle Blanc “Diplomacy of Hope: Transatlantic Relations in the Transition from Trump to Biden”, Foreign Policy Analysis, 19: 4, 2023

Corina Lacatus “Populism, Competitive Authoritarianism, and Foreign Policy: The case of Uganda’s 2021 election,” Global Studies Quarterly 3:1, 2023

Corina Lacatus and Gustav Meibauer “Saying it like it is: Right-wing populist leaders, political communication and foreign policy,” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 24:3, 2022

Corina Lacatus and Gustav Meibauer “Crisis, rhetoric, and right-wing populist incumbency: An analysis of Donald Trump’s tweets and press briefings,” Government and Opposition, 58:2, 2021

Corina Lacatus “Populism and President Trump’s approach to foreign policy: An analysis of tweets and rally speeches,” Politics, 41:1, 2021

Corina Lacatus and Gustav Meibauer “Introduction to the Special Issue: Elections, Rhetoric and American Foreign Policy in the Age of Donald Trump”, Politics, 41:1, 2021

Corina Lacatus “Populism and the 2016 American Election: evidence from official press releases and Twitter,” PS: Political Science & Politics, 52:2, 2019

Corina Lacatus “Populist Communication and Foreign Policy in a Competitive Authoritarian Context” in Corina Lacatus, Gustav Meibauer, and Georg Löfflmann (Eds.) Political Communication and Performative Leadership: Populism in International Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

Corina Lacatus, Gustav Meibauer and Georg Löfflmann “Introduction: Populist Communication and Performative Leadership in International politics” in Corina Lacatus, Gustav Meibauer, and Georg Löfflmann (Eds.) Political Communication and Performative Leadership: Populism in International Politics (Palgrave 
Macmillan, 2023)

Methodology and research development

Corina Lacatus Qualitative Research in Politics and International Relations: A practical and pluralist guide (SAGE Publishing, forthcoming in December 2024)

Corina Lacatus and Alex Nogues Create Your Research Poster, SAGE Publishing, 2021

Cora Lacatus, Daniel Schade and Yuan Yao “Quo vadis IR: Method, Methodology and Innovation Methods, Methodology and Innovation,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 43:3, 2015

Supervision

Corina is interested in supervising PhD dissertations in any of her areas of research specialisation.