Susanne Zwingel

Biography

Areas of Expertise

International women’s rights and their translation; gender equality advocacy around the world; global governance and gender; feminist, constructivist and post-colonial IR theories; gender and armed conflict.

Dr. Zwingel received her Ph. D. in Political Science from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and an M.A. in Politics and Sociology from Hamburg University, Germany. Before joining the department of Politics and International Relations at FIU in 2014, she worked as Associate Professor of Politics at the State University of New York in Potsdam, NY.

 

Dr. Zwingel’s research interests include international women’s rights norms and their translation; gender equality advocacy around the world; global governance and gender; cross-national gender equality indices; feminist, constructivist and post-colonial IR theories; and gender and armed conflict. A short presentation of her research profile can be found here.

Publications in her fields of expertise include journal articles (e.g. “How Do Norms Travel? Theorizing International Women’s Rights in Transnational Perspective”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, 2012), book chapters (e.g. ”Gender equality norms in international governance – actors, contexts, meanings“, in Engberg-Pedersen, Lars, Fejerskov, Adam M., and Cold-Ravnkilde, Signe Marie (eds.): Rethinking gender equality in global governance. The delusion of norm diffusion, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and a co-edited volume (with Elisabeth Prügl and Gülay Caglar: Feminist Strategies in International Governance, Routledge, 2013). In 2016, she published a monograph titled “Translating International Women’s Rights: The CEDAW Convention in Context” (with Palgrave Macmillan). It analyzes the global discourse on women’s rights norms as well as transnationally connected actors that use these norms to strengthen their claims for gender equality domestically. Following the book, Dr. Zwingel has been compiling an online bibliography that traces the impact of CEDAW around the world – check it out! For a complete list of publications and other accomplishments, please see her CV below.

Dr. Zwingel is currently working on two projects: the first is on the engagement of Caribbean states and societies with global gender equality norms; the second is a study of the local use of international women’s rights norms in Miami Dade County through the CEDAW ordinance adopted in 2015. In the future, Dr. Zwingel plans to investigate the role of translators in international organizations.

At FIU, Dr. Zwingel teaches undergraduate courses on International Relations Theories, Men and Women in International Relations, and Political Repression and Human Rights, and graduate courses on Contemporary IR theories, Feminism and IR, and Global Issues and Human Rights. As a German national who is also fluent in Spanish, she is proud to contribute to FIU’s multicultural and dynamic community.