Wolfgang Minatti
I am a PhD Researcher at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence and a visiting scholar at the WZB in Berlin.
I work on legitimation and governance in international politics.
My PhD project investigates the legitimation of governing armed actors during civil war, focusing on the Colombian conflict.
What explains local variation in the legitimacy of armed actors during civil war?
Existing scholarship often faces difficulties accounting for local variation in the legitimacy of armed actors during civil war as it pre-specifies "sources of legitimacy", considers beliefs about rightful rule as static and sees legitimation as isolated from network dynamics. Conversely, my dissertation argues that civil wars need to be conceptualised as contexts of complex governance networks, where civilians are confronted with different armed actors' governance simultaneously over time.
Combining process tracing with four months of immersive fieldwork in central Colombia, the thesis tests this theory of legitimation with a most-similar case design of two rural communities. Local variation in the legitimacy of the rebel group FARC, it finds, cannot be explained by dynamics within the relation between the FARC and each community but by network effects, particularly the role of the state.
The thesis pushes forward our understanding of the relationship between legitimation processes and governance networks by (a) offering a theory of congruence-finding that can capture and explain legitimation dynamics in complex governance networks; (b) specifying several mechanisms of how beliefs change endogenously to governance networks; and (c) contributing to the link between rebel governance and (self-)legitimation and its significance for the Colombian conflict.
Combining process tracing with four months of immersive fieldwork in central Colombia, the thesis tests this theory of legitimation with a most-similar case design of two rural communities. Local variation in the legitimacy of the rebel group FARC, it finds, cannot be explained by dynamics within the relation between the FARC and each community but by network effects, particularly the role of the state.
The thesis pushes forward our understanding of the relationship between legitimation processes and governance networks by (a) offering a theory of congruence-finding that can capture and explain legitimation dynamics in complex governance networks; (b) specifying several mechanisms of how beliefs change endogenously to governance networks; and (c) contributing to the link between rebel governance and (self-)legitimation and its significance for the Colombian conflict.
Before joining the European University Institute in 2019, I obtained a Bachelors’ degree at the University Innsbruck (Austria) and a Masters’ degree at Leiden University (The Netherlands). I was a visiting scholar at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota (Colombia) and the Centre of Excellence SCRIPTS (Berlin).
Research Interests
Legitimacy
How can we theorise and operationalise legitimation in contexts of complex governance such as international politics or civil war?
Civil War
What is the role of ideation in civil war? What are the ethics of fieldwork in contexts of political violence?
Governance
How do armed actors govern in civil war? How is governance co-constructed between civilians and governance providers?
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
2023
A Key Success Factor: Elucidating the Meaning of Legitimacy for UN Peacekeepers
Working Papers
Work in Progress
Whither Willkommenskultur? National Identity Change following the Arrival of Refugees in Germany in 2015/16
with Selma Kropp (European University Institute)
Work in Progress
"We’ve been made vulnerable": Towards a Situational Understanding of Vulnerability in Fieldwork
with Guillaume Gass (L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales)
Work in Progress
Of Assistants and Researchers: Vulnerability during Fieldwork on the Colombian Conflict
with Laura Ramírez Rodríguez (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Non-Academic Writings
September 2020
Teaching
2023
A Life Cycle of Fieldwork
PhD-Level Seminar
European University Institute, Italy
Co-organised with Ophelia Nicole-Berva and Samuel Ritholtz
2022
Social Phenomena of Rebel Groups
MA-Level Seminar
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
2021
Conducting Qualitative Fieldwork: Interviews and Participant Observation
PhD-Level Seminar
European University Institute, Italy
Co-organised with Prof. Caitlin Procter and Mariusz Bogacki