Short biography

Research

Andreas Wimmer's research aims to understand the dynamics of nation-state formation, ethnic boundary making and political conflict from a comparative perspective (see the research pages for current projects). His writings show how nation-building politicizes ethnic difference, and under which conditions various forms of exclusion and conflict along ethnic, national or racial lines result. He has pursued this theme across several disciplinary fields, focusing on examples from both the developing and the developed world, and using various methodological and analytical strategies: anthropological field research (in Mexico and Iraq), network studies (in Swiss immigrant neighborhoods and among American college students), quantitative cross-national research (on wars and ethnic conflicts), a comparative historical analysis of Swiss, Iraqi, and Mexican nation-state formation, as well as policy oriented research on immigration and the prevention of ethnic conflict.

His other areas of research include theories of culture and social change. He has developed a model of cultural negotiation and compromise to study a wide variety of seemingly disparate phenomena such as ethnic boundary making, mythical narration, nation-building and cross-cultural love. Several of these studies have recently been brought together in a new book. This theory of cultural transformation also provided the basis for two earlier books that compared the different paths along which indigenous communities in Mexico and Guatemala evolved over the past two hundred years, depending on initial conditions as well as the subsequent transformations of power relations at the local level. Seeking to understand the general methodological and theoretical problems involved in understanding such processes, he has edited a volume that discusses various post-mechanistic, non-linear models of change from the natural sciences, economics and the social sciences.

Professional background

Andreas Wimmer was educated at the University of Zurich, from where he received a PhD in social anthropology in 1992 and a habilitation two years later. Since 2003 he is professor of sociology at the University of California Los Angeles. During the academic year 2009/2010, he is on leave and a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.

He previously served as founding director of two interdisciplinary research institutes: the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies at the University of Neuchâtel (from 1995 to 1999) and the Department of Political and Cultural Change at the Center for Development Research of the University of Bonn (from 1999 to 2002). Both count among the leading European research centers in their respective fields.

During his tenure at the Swiss Forum for Migration Studies, he served as advisor to a number of Swiss government agencies and committees. More specifically, he introduced a human capital model into the political debate and thus helped to reform the country-of-origin admission system. During his tenure at the Center for Development Research, he proposed policies to enhance the capacity of the Afghanistan state after the Bonn agreement and to prevent ethno-religious conflict in Iraq after Hussein's overthrow. Unfortunately, the rather somber predictions made in these papers regarding the future political stability of Afghanistan and Iraq came true. Wimmer has also worked as a consultant for international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, UNICEF, the governments of Germany and Switzerland, and various NGOs.

He is board member of, among others, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and the Foundation for Population, Migration, and Environment, for which he initiated a research program on migration in Turkey housed at Koc University as well as a joint research initiative with Metropolis International. He received the prestigious Heisenberg fellowship from the German Research Foundation, was Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College of Oxford University, a fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies Berlin, Visiting Professor for Ethnic Studies and Sociology at Harvard University, and visiting professor at the University of Paris and the Institute for Research in Humanities of Kyoto University.