Rachel Herring
Thesis title: A transnational civil society elite? The case of German-Czech and German-Polish relations
My thesis empirically analyses the role(s) of civil society in bilateral relations between states through comparing German-Czech and German-Polish relations. Drawing on the literature on non-state actors (NSAs) in international relations (IR), it addresses a gap in this literature by foregrounding the concept of civil society, which has not yet been adequately defined or investigated in the context of inter-state relations. Understanding civil society in this context is needed because the dominant discourse around it at the political level tends to be normative, symbolic and superficial. Meanwhile, much of the existing research on civil society is either highly theoretical or does not apply the concept to states’ foreign relations or foreign policy.
While politicians in liberal democracies praise civil society’s role in sustaining or improving bilateral relations, civil society organisations operating in this space are branded and targeted by an increasing number of regimes as ‘foreign agents.’ But what does civil society really mean in the context of IR, and what influence can it have? How do civil society organisations and movements differ, and which are most significant in bilateral relations? Combining a relational approach to transnational relations with elite theory, my thesis provides a new, empirically founded investigation of what civil society means for bilateral relations between states, and how and why different types of actors take on the roles they do in supporting, researching or even influencing German-Czech and German-Polish relations through civil society-based agendas. In doing so, my research also furthers our understanding of Germany as a country which pursues ‘soft’ forms of diplomacy, and the significance of Germany’s relations with its Central European neighbours, particularly those with which it shares borders.
Biography
I graduated with a BA in History and German from Merton College, Oxford in 2022, having specialised in modern European history and modern German literature. In the penultimate year of my degree I spent a year living and working in Stuttgart. I went on to do an MA in German Translation and Professional Language Skills at the University of Bath in 2022 and an MSc in Social Science Research at Aston University in 2023, before starting my PhD in autumn 2024. From October-December 2024 I was the Think Visegrad Fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, where I carried out interviews and produced a policy paper on Czech-German and Polish-German relations.
Area Studies
Aston University
2023 Cohort 1+3
Supervisory Team
Dr Ed Turner
Prof Tim Haughton
Dr Balazs Szent-Ivanyi
Dr Johannes Lindner
Collaborator
Jacques Delors Centre, Berlin