Main interests:
Please contact me at: M.Siddi@sms.ed.ac.uk
I am a researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the universities of Edinburgh and Cologne. My main focus is on historical and current perceptions of Russia in EU member states and how these affect European foreign policy towards Russia. During my stays at the Trans European Policy Studies Association (Brussels) and at the Hungarian Academy of Science (Budapest) I researched EU-Russia energy relations, the frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet space and the issue of ballistic missile defence in Europe. I also wrote studies for the Institut für Europäische Politik (Berlin) and Affarinternazionali (Rome). Furthermore, I am a regular contributor to the Italian online journals Meridiani Affari Internazionali and Instoria.
Prior to joining the EXACT Ph.D. programme, I graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna with a Master's degree in International Studies (2008-2010). I also have a Bachelor degree in Modern History and German Language and Literature from Oxford University (2004-2008). In addition, I attended study programs at the Diplomatic Academy of Moscow, the universities of Trier and Bremen and the United World College of the Adriatic, where I obtained the International Baccalaureate. In 2009-2010 I was President of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna's Student Initiative, focusing on student welfare, the organization of a conference on nuclear non-proliferation, the Academy's 2010 charity ball and several sport activities.
Furthermore, I worked as an intern at the Action against Terrorism Unit of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe and at the Vienna-based public affairs consultancy Human Dynamics.
| October 2010 – February 2011 | University of Cologne |
| March 2011 – October 2011 | Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA), Brussels |
| November 2011 – March 2012 | Institute for World Economics (IWE), Budapest |
| April 2012 – September 2013 | University of Edinburgh |
| From October 2013 | DAAD Fellow, Institute of European Politics (IEP), Berlin |
Title of research project: Divided history, divisive foreign policy? Policy makers' discourses on Russia in EU member states
Supervisor: Dr. Luke March (University of Edinburgh), Professor John Peterson (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Wolfgang Wessels (University of Cologne)
My dissertation investigates the relationship between national identity and policy-makers' discourses on Russia in EU Member States. Based on an interpretative constructivist theoretical framework, the dissertation argues that national identity constitutes an essential social structure to understand policy-makers' discourses on Russia. The analysis focuses on national identity construction and Russia's role therein in Germany, Poland and Finland. The three selected countries have a long history of troubled relations with Russia, which influenced profoundly the construction of their national identity.
The empirical part of the dissertation analyses policy-makers' discourses on Russia during international events in which the Kremlin played a key role between 1999 and 2009. These include the Second Chechnya War, the energy crises between Russia and Ukraine and the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. The main focus is on discourses of key foreign policy makers, namely heads of states and governments, foreign and defence ministers. Furthermore, the dissertation compares national discourses in the selected countries and examines the prospects for the emergence of shared or reconcilable European discourses on Russia.
Discourse-historical analysis is the methodology applied to deconstruct discourses on Russia and investigate their relationship with national identity.
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