Wolfgang Minatti
I am a visiting fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin and recently defended my dissertation at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence.
I work on legitimation and governance in international politics.
My dissertation 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?
In my dissertation, I argue 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. This is in contrast to existing scholarship, which 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.
Combining process tracing with four months of immersive fieldwork in central Colombia, my dissertation 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.
My dissertation 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, my dissertation 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.
My dissertation 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.
I completed my PhD at the European University Institute in 2024. Previously, 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
2024
Legitimate Governance in International Politics: Towards a Relational Theory of Legitimationhttps://www.cambridge
Review of International Studies, Online First
2024
Whither Willkommenskultur? National Identity Discourses and the Arrival of Refugees in Germany in 2015/16https://www.tandfonline
Journal for Ethnic and Migration Studies, Online First, With Selma Kropp
2023
A Key Success Factor: Elucidating the Meaning of Legitimacy for UN Peacekeepershttps://www.tandfonline
Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 17(5), pp. 557-576.
2021
Concepts of Legitimacy: Congruence and Divergence in the Afghan Conflicthttps://www.tandfonline
Civil Wars, 22(1), pp. 1-15, With Isabelle Duyvesteyn
Working Papers
Work in Progress
"We’ve been made vulnerable": Towards a Situational Understanding of Vulnerability in Fieldwork
$20.00
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$20.00
with Laura Ramírez Rodríguez (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Non-Academic Writings
January 2022
Memory of Violence and Conflict in Cabrera, Colombiahttps://euideas.eui
Published in EUIdeas
September 2021
Legitimate Governance and the Taliban's takeoverhttps://euideas.eui
Published in EUIdeas
September 2020
The Challenges of the Afghan Peace Talkshttps://euideas.eui
Published in EUIdeas
Teaching
2023
A Life Cycle of Fieldworkhttps://www.eui
PhD-Level Seminar
European University Institute, Italy
Co-organised with Ophelia Nicole-Berva and Samuel Ritholtz
2022
Social Phenomena of Rebel Groupshttps://www.tucan
MA-Level Seminar
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
2021
Conducting Qualitative Fieldwork: Interviews and Participant Observationhttps://www.eui
PhD-Level Seminar
European University Institute, Italy
Co-organised with Prof. Caitlin Procter and Mariusz Bogacki