Dahrendorf Scholars and Essays

Dahrendorf Scholars and Essays

Each year three St Antony’s students are selected by a competitive process to work on the Research Agenda of the Programme and to undertake a piece of independent research on a subject related to the study of freedom. The scholars are selected on the basis of written applications, and interviews when necessary, by a committee of Fellows of the College. Among their obligations is to write a free-form essay on a topic of their choice. Click on the links below to read Dahrendorf essays from previous years.

The 2022-23 Dahrendorf Scholars

Abid Adonis

Abid is a DPhil student at the Oxford Internet Institute, supervised by Professor Luciano Floridi. His research aims to understand digital sovereignty as an idea and practice, particularly how digital sovereignty reshapes international politics, among great powers. His other research interests include international relations and technology, the politics of cyberspace, and digital statecraft. 

Essay title: Ordering the Digital World: Europe and the Global South in Digital Politics

Julia Carver

Julia is a DPhil student in International Relations, under the supervision of Dr Robert Johnson and Professor Dominic Johnson. Her research explores the interplay between geopolitical strategic thought, sovereignty, and the development of cybersecurity policy by the European Union. Given that her research is concerned with the EU’s strategic behaviour in cyberspace, she is also eager to understand how the EU’s relationships with other actors (as well as the goals of its own Member States in that policy domain) have shaped relevant EU policy developments. 

Essay title: to be confirmed

Olivier de France

Olivier is a DPhil student in international relations, under the supervision of Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis. He is interested in the history of European political thinking, and the implications it holds for the Old Continent’s present political and geopolitical shifts. In his doctoral work, he looks more specifically at the ideas of Benedict Spinoza and their legacy. 

Essay title: to be confirmed

Talia Kollek

Talia is a DPhil student in Area Studies (with a focus on Russia and East European Studies), supervised by Dr Nicolette Mackovicky. Her research focuses on civil society in Russia and Eastern Europe. Over the past decade, restrictions around the world have resulted in a ‘shrinking space’ for civil society. Talia’s research investigates how organisations navigate increasingly challenging environments to continue their work, and how governing bodies such as the EU can support these efforts. 

Essay title: 'So-Call Gender Freedoms': The Western Origins of Russian Transphobia

Alexandra Solovyev

Alexandra is a DPhil candidate in History of Art, supervised by Professor Alastair Wright. Her doctoral research is focused on the visual culture of the British railways in Ottoman Anatolia during the nineteenth century. She is also interested in policy around the repatriation of artworks and cultural artefacts and in the historical origins of these contemporary issues.

Essay title: British Repatriation of Cultural Property from the Nineteenth Century to Today

 

Ruihan Zhu

Ruihan is an MPhil student in Development Studies. Her research interests include the political economy of development, sustainable development, and rural-urban linkages. Her current research focuses on the ontological debates around climate change and the critique of mainstream development ideas. In her MPhil thesis, Ruihan examines the impact of green transformation on local communities in China, especially its interconnection with gender equality, poverty reduction, and the digital economy.

Essay title: to be confirmed 

The 2021 Dahrendorf Scholars

Picture of 2021 Dahrendorf Scholar Iyone Agboraw

Iyone Agboraw

PDF icon Identity: Betwixt Silence, Choice, and Fear

Picture of 2021 Dahrendorf Scholar Laura Ballerini

Laura Ballerini

PDF icon Can Medical Humanitarianism Ever Be Neutral?

Picture of 2021 Dahrendorf Scholar David Saveliev

David Saveliev

PDF icon False Promises and Real Hopes: What the Belarusian Protests of 2020 Can Tell Europe

The 2020 Dahrendorf Scholars

Picture of 2020 Dahrendorf Scholar Valerie Gutmann

Valerie Gutmann

PDF icon Home, Freedom, and European identity: Perspectives from European Graduate Students in the Age of Brexit

Picture of 2020 Dahrendorf Scholar Ellen Leafstedt

Ellen Leafstedt

PDF icon “Why Russia is Europe and the EU… Not So Much”: The Reimagining of Russia’s Place in Europe

Picture of 2020 Dahrendorf Scholar Reja Wyss

Reja Wyss

PDF icon The European Divide on Climate Change: The Fridays for Future Movement in Poland and the Future of Europe

The 2019 Dahrendorf Scholars

Picture of 2019 Dahrendorf Scholar Jihane Benamar

Jihane Benamar

PDF icon Never Again the "Gendarme of Europe"? Morocco's Changing Regional Role and the Migration Question

Picture of 2019 Dahrendorf Scholar Maeve Moynihan

Maeve Moynihan

PDF icon Project Ireland 2040: The Freedom of Movement in Ireland's Future Vision of Itself

Picture of 2019 Dahrendorf Scholar Auguste Breteau

Auguste Breteau

PDF icon In Defence of European Border Policies? Integrated Border Management, Development without Accountability, and the Role of European Partners in the Securitisation of Lebanon

   

The 2018 Dahrendorf Scholars

Picture of 2018 Dahrendorf Scholar Robert Gorwa

Robert Gorwa

GLASNOST! Nine Ways Facebook Can Make Itself a Better Forum for Free Speech and Democracy

Picture of 2018 Dahrendorf Scholar Yasmina Abouzzohour

Yasmina Abouzzohour

Red Lines in the Kingdoms of Benevolent Dictators: The Role of Freedom of Speech in the Potential Pathways to Democracy in Different Authoritarian Settings

Picture of 2018 Dahrendorf Scholar Milica Radovic

Milica Radovic

PDF icon The Yugoslav Wars as a Taboo in the Western Balkans

   

The 2017 Dahrendorf Scholars

Photo of Xiaoyu Lu

Xiaoyu Lu

PDF icon Double Dissidents: Chinese Students Returning from the West

Photo of Jonathan Raspe

Jonathan Raspe

PDF icon Das wird man ja wohl noch kritisieren dürfen! Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Criticism in Germany, or Why the Jews are to Blame for the AfD

Photo of William Allen

William Allen

PDF icon Representing Freedom and Force: How Data Visualisations Convey the Complex Realities of Migration

   

The 2016 Dahrendorf Scholars

Photo of Helen Haft

Helen Haft

PDF icon Article 148 - The Aftermath of Punk-Prayer

Photo of Iris Nxumalo

Iris Nxumalo-De Smidt

Epistemic Communities of Freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa: Negotiating and Refashioning Womanhood in Africa

Photo of Renzhi Li

Renzhi Li

PDF icon Reading Isaiah Berlin in China

   

The 2015 Dahrendorf Scholars

Photo of Monica Richter

Monika Richter

Photo of Jalal Imran

Jalal Imran

Violence and Non-Violence in the Arab Spring

Photo of Suzanne Robin

Suzanne Robin

Dieudonné: Free Speech Gone Wild

   

The 2014 Dahrendorf Scholars

Photo of Ava Hess

Ava Hess

PDF icon Covering the Aesthetics of Resistance: The Fashioning of 'Bad-Hejab' Stereotypes in Online Media

Photo of Max Gallien

Max Gallien

PDF icon Last Thoughts of Al-Bernameg: Bassem Youssef and the Egyptian Struggle for Freedom of Speech

Photo of Yu Tao

Yu Tao

PDF icon 'Religious Diversity' in Contemporary Chinese Scholarship

   

The 2013 Dahrendorf Scholars

Photo of Katherine Bruce-Lockhart

Katherine Bruce-Lockhart

PDF icon From Hate Speech to Self-Censorship: The Role of the Media in Kenya's 2007 & 2013 Elections

Photo of Bassam Gergi

Bassam Gergi

PDF icon For Jobs and Freedom, 50 years on: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the Age of Obama

Photo of Rory McCarthy

Rory McCarthy

PDF icon Who is Threatening Free Speech in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia?

   

The 2012 Dahrendorf Scholars

Photo of Annabelle Chapman

Annabelle Chapman

PDF icon Towards a 'Parallel Polis'? Creating Freedom in Belarus

Photo of Andrew Clark

Andrew Clark

PDF icon The Successes and Failures of Egyptian Secularism

Photo of Rutger Kaput

Rutger Kaput

PDF icon The Wilders Case: A Politician on Trial

   

The 2011 Dahrendorf Scholars

Photo of Jacob Amis

Jacob Amis

PDF icon "Quiet Spring": Jordan and the 2011 Arab Uprising

Photo of Katharine Engelhard

Katharine Engelhart

PDF icon Bosnia's Three-Headed Beast: Sejdic and Finci vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Case for "Reasonable" Discrimination

   

The 2010 Dahrendorf Scholars

Photo of Dominic Burbridge

Dominic Burbidge

PDF icon A Letter from a Young Christian to a Liberal

Photo of Andreas Knab

Andreas Knab

A Bargain with Fate: To Diffuse the Threat of Online Jihadism, We Must Stick to Our Guns

Photo of Christopher Kutarna

Christopher Kutarna

Democracy, Unbundled Objectivity, Subjectivity, and the Search for Common Ground

Photo of Xibai Xu

Xibai Xu

PDF icon Neo-Liberalism and Governance in China