“Evaluating Democracies: International Election Observers and the Contestation of Liberal Ordering”

Axes de recherche 1 : Déplacements, dépaysements et décalages : hommes, savoirs et pratiques & 2 : Normes et transgressions

I am a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Central European University and a DOC-Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. My research focuses on international election observers in the post-Cold War era. Specifically, I examine practices of contestation facing observation missions sent out by regional organizations. As a key pillar of democracy promotion and liberal international ordering, election observation provides an entry point for understanding contemporary endogenous and exogenous challenges to liberal international ordering.

My project is embedded in the subfield of international political sociology. To collect data, I combine interviews with election observation practitioners and intergovernmental organization staff with archival research, particularly at the OSCE archives in Prague. In line with a Bourdieu-inspired research methodology, my project emphasizes participant observation. I have worked as a OSCE and EU election observer in Bolivia, the United States, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Serbia. I am also a research associate at the NGO Election-Watch.EU.

Currently I work on a research project investigating OSCE election observer careers and the recruitment practices of OSCE missions. Previously, I conducted research on parallel election observation missions and published an article on the election observation missions of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the OSCE region.

Education

• PhD in International Relations, Central European University (ongoing)
• MA in International Relations, Central European University
• Certificate of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sciences Po Paris
• BA and MA in Political Science, University of Vienna

Selected Publications

Pollak, M. (2025). Mimicking Election Observation: The Politics of Parallel Election Monitoring. Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy.

Teaching experience

2025-2026: Lecturer at the University of Vienna for the course “Politics of Democratization and Autocratization”

2025: Teaching Assistant at Central European University for the courses “International Intervention and Statebuilding” and “Introduction to International Relations”, Vienna

Conferences and Public Presentations

• European International Studies Association (EISA) – 2025 Pan-European Conference on International Relations (“It´s a small world! For 20 years it´s often been the same people”)
• Electoral Integrity Conference (EIP) – 2023 (“Mimicking Election Observation”) + 2025 (“It´s a small world! For 20 years it´s often been the same people”)
• University of Vienna – “The Subversion of Liberal Election Observation?”, presentation at the Marie Jahoda Summer School 2024 (July 2024).
• University of Oxford – “Mimicking Election Observation”, presentation was a part of the programme of the Europaeum Oxford Spring School 2024, St Antony´s college (April 2024).
• Sciences Po Paris – “Mimicking Election Observation”, guest speaker at an event of the CERI VERELECT research group (November 2024)
• Central European University – Pollak, M.“´Being an observer is not a profession – although everyone thinks it is”, guest speaker at the Conflict and Security Research group (March 2025)