Hilde van Meegdenburg is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science.

More information about Hilde van Meegdenburg

Hilde van Meegdenburg is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science of Leiden University. Her research focusses on state foreign policy making with a particular focus on state ‘collective narratives’—the stories states tell about themselves, others, and (historical) events—and the ways in which such narratives lay at the basis of both collective meaning making and foreign policy. A central question in her research is how states ‘talk’ about themselves and others and, through a multitude of storied interventions, bring (narrate) into being particular interstate relations—both peaceful and conflictual.

Besides her substantive work Hilde actively works on further developing qualitative research methods and methodologies, in particular process tracing methods. In relation to this she taught, and will continue to teach, many courses on process tracing throughout Europe. More information about her process tracing activities, publications, and workshops can be found here.

Hilde currently also holds a Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship (SoDiIR) to research ‘social distance’ in international relations and world politics. This project foregrounds the socio-emotional dimension of state foreign policy making.

Before coming to Leiden University in 2018, she held positions at the Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) Munich and the Technical University (TU) Munich. She obtained her doctor’s degree at the Free University Berlin in 2016. During her Ph.D. candidacy she was based at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin as a research fellow.

More information on her research, teaching and person can be found on her personal website hildevanmeegdenburg.com. You can find her on twitter as @HildeMeeg.

PhD supervision

Hilde van Meegdenburg is available to supervise PhD students and invites PhD research proposals in the areas of:

• Security studies (especially private actors in security governance)
• Foreign policy
• Emotions in International Relations

See for more information on PhD positions:

› Institute of Political Science: PhD

Publications