I grew up in Thessaloniki, one of the most historically layered cities in Greece, where Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Jewish, and Greek influences are still felt to this day. As a child, that meant nothing to me. It was just home. Then I started noticing the gap between the official national narrative in our textbooks and the complicated reality visible in the city’s streets, ruins, or neighborhood names. That gap became my life’s work.
I am an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School, a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the editor-in-chief of Nationalities Papers. My research asks a deceptively simple question: how do states decide who belongs in the people— and what happens to those who don’t fit? In an era of surging nationalism, contested borders, and the weaponization of identity from Ukraine to the United States, that question has never felt more urgent.
My work explores the impact of international politics on nation-building, political development, and diaspora policy. After completing my Ph.D. in political science at Yale University and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, I joined the Department of Political Science at George Washington University. There, I teach undergraduate courses on International Affairs, Nationalism, Patriotism, and European Integration, as well as graduate seminars on Globalization Backlash Politics, Nation-Building in the Balkans, Nationalism and Nation-Building, and Qualitative Research Methods.
My first book, The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities (Cambridge University Press, 2012), received the The Peter Katzenstein Book Prize (2013), the European Studies Book Award from the Council for European Studies (2014), and an honorable mention by the Rothschild Prize in Nationalism and Ethnic Studies Committee of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (2014). My most recent book, co-authored with Maya Tudor, Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. I have also co-edited two volumes: Enemies Within: The Global Politics of Fifth Columns (Oxford University Press, 2022, with Scott Radnitz) and The Microfoundations of Diaspora Politics (Routledge, 2022, with Alexandra Délano Alonso).
My research has been published in several academic journals, including the Annual Review of Political Science; Comparative Political Studies; Security Studies; International Political Science Review; Journal of Global Security, Studies; Perspectives on Politics; European Journal of Political Research; Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Political Science Quarterly; Territory, Politics, Governance; Nations and Nationalism; Social Science Quarterly; Nationalities Papers; Nationalism and Ethnic Politics; Ethnopolitics; as well as various edited volumes.
Turning to service, at GW, I have served as Associate Dean for Research at the Elliott School of International Affairs (2017–18) and have been Elliott School’s representative in the Faculty Senate since 2018.
Beyond GW, for the past seven years, I have served as Editor-in-Chief of Nationalities Papers, where I oversee cutting-edge research on national identities, self-determination movements, migration, and ethnic conflict. I am also a member of the editorial board of Diaspora Studies.
For over a decade, I have been serving as a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, the world’s largest scholarly organization dedicated to the study of nationalism and ethnic conflict in Eurasia. From 2019 to 2021, I served as Chair of the Council for European Studies Research Network on “Historical Study of States and Regimes,” and since 2021, I have been serving as an executive board member.
Beyond academia, I engage with the public as a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of PONARS Eurasia, and through briefings and presentations to various branches of the U.S. government. I bridge scholarly expertise and broader audiences through academic publications, public talks, and media commentary. My work has been featured in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN.com, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and the Washington Post‘s Blog, the Monkey Cage. In addition to writing, I have co-produced American Constitutive Stories, a podcast exploring American national identity, and directed Searching for Andreas: Political Leadership in Times of Crisis, a documentary on the dangers of charismatic leadership.
Harris Mylonas 