From February 20 to March 29, 2026, Johanna Speyer was a Visiting Fellow at the University of St. Gallen. The visit was the result of an invitation from Prof. Klaus Dingwerth. He serves as Johanna Speyer’s mentor as part of the Leibniz Mentoring Program, an initiative of the Leibniz Association that supports highly qualified female researchers.
During her visit, Johanna Speyer worked on her book project “Backlash Against the International Order: Contesting Liberal Norms and Institutions in the EU and Beyond,” which examines states’ resistance to liberal orders. Empirically, she examines resistance to the EU in Poland from 2015 to 2017, as well as the absence of such resistance in Portugal from 2015 to 2017 and in Poland from 2005 to 2007.
Johanna Speyer also worked on two article projects, one of which deals with norm hierarchies and the contestation of fundamental norms, and the second with the contestation of international orders. As part of the Political Science Research Seminar at the School of Economic and Political Science (SEPS), she had the opportunity to present and discuss one of the article projects on March 24, 2026.
At PRIF, Johanna Speyer is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the LOEWE Research Group World Orders in Conflict, a Research Associate in the Research Department International Institutions and an External Research Associate at Goethe University Frankfurt/M. She works on the contestation of norms and institutions, the dynamics of international authority and the question of when (norm) contestation leads to a crisis of order.