Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of International Relations and Political Science at The Graduate Institute, Geneva (IHEID). Previously, I was a Sinergia Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Basel. My research brings topics in conflict, security, political violence, and governance into conversation with the sensory and material world. My papers have been accorded the Wilson Award and the Hayward R. Alker Award by the American Political Science Association. My dissertation was awarded the Honorable Mention for the Malcolm H. Kerr Award by the Middle Eastern Studies Association, and the Honorable Mention for Best Fieldwork by the American Political Science Association’s Democracy and Autocracy Section.
I received my PhD in Politics at the New School for Social Research in New York in 2020, where I trained in comparative politics and international relations and specialized in the political systems of the Middle East and North Africa. I received an ALM in Government from Harvard University, and a BS in Journalism from the Medill School at Northwestern University. My research has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, American Institute of Maghrib Studies, the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, the Palestinian American Research Center, and the Graduate Institute for Design, Research and Ethnography.
My current book project is entitled “Sound Politics: Affective Governance and the State.” The book draws on empirical, inductive case studies in Palestine, Israel, Algeria, France, and Morocco. It asks how ambient sound constitutes a form of political power. The cases reveal embodied and affective forces that undergird public opinion and behavior in conflict and contentious politics, and models a way of understanding domination and resistance that has important implications for understanding politics today.
The Graduate Institute, Geneva
Dept. of International Relations and Political Science
Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2
CH-1202 Geneva
Switzerland
michelle.weitzel (at) graduateinstitute.ch
Bio @ The Graduate Institute