Biography

MA (hons) Politics & History (Edinburgh), Msc History and Theory of IR (LSE), PhD IR (LSE)

Stefanie Ortmann joined the department in 2009. She completed her PhD in IR at the London School of Economics in 2008 and has since taught at the American University of Central Asia, Bishkek, and at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her theoretical interests concern the nature of the state and the Westphalian system in IR, the Eurocentric nature of the discipline and questions about the universalism of "the international", hermeneutic and linguistic approaches to International Relations, identities and culture in IR, and Critical Geopolitics. Her geographic area of research is Russia and the former Soviet space (in particular relations between Russia and Central Asia).

More concretely, she is currently pursuing four research projects:

- the evolving identity of the Russian state as "hyper-Westphalian" Great Power and sovereign democracy in the post-Soviet period, and the light this sheds on the concept of identity and state socialization in constructivist IR.

- political conspiracy theories in the former Soviet space

- the possibility of a critical approach to Area Studies and the relationship between fieldwork/area research and IR

- A Leverhulme-funded research project (2010-1013) investigates elite networks between Russia and Central Asia and their implications for post-Soviet state building, the nature of "international politics" in the CIS, and the perpetuation of the post-Soviet space.

Role

Convenor, MA Geopolitics and Grand Strategy

Russian state-building, identity and foreign policy. Relations between Russia and Central Asia. Critical Geopolitics and ambiguities of territoriality in the FSU. Conceptions of state and identity in IR. The IR/area studies nexus.

Geopolitics and Grand Strategy (core course)

Russia and the FSU in Global politics (3rd year option)

Student Consultation

Autumn term: Tuesday 11-12, Friday 1-2

Ortmann, Stefanie and Heathershaw, John (2012) Conspiracy theories in the post-Soviet space. The Russian Review, 71 (4). pp. 551-564. ISSN 1467-9434

Ortmann, Stefanie (2011) The Russian network state as a great power. In: Russia as a network state: what works in Russia when state institutions do not? Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. ISBN 9780230249646

Ortmann, Stefanie (2008) Diffusion as discourse of danger: Russian self-representations and the framing of the Tulip Revolution. Central Asian Survey, 27 (3-4). pp. 363-378. ISSN 0263-4937