Markus Pollak is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the Doctoral School of Political Science at Central European University.
He is interested in research on liberal international ordering, contestation, democracy promotion and international political sociology (in particular Bourdieusian approaches). His dissertation focuses on contestation practices in the field of international election observation.
Markus is also an active election observer, having recently served on OSCE-ODIHR missions to the United States (2024), Uzbekistan (2023), Serbia (2023) and Kazakhstan (2022). He is also a research associate at the NGO Election-Watch.EU.
He also holds an MA in International Relations from the Central European University, which he completed in 2021, and studied Political Science at the University of Vienna and Sciences Po Paris. While at the University of Vienna, he worked for two years as a research assistant for the Austrian Corona Panel Project (ACPP). Among other things, he wrote the ACPP Chronology of the Corona Crisis in Austria. Previously, he worked for the Americas Department of the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (BMEIA), as well as in research and education at UNESCO, the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, YFU Argentina, the Holocaust Exhibition Vilnius and the NGO Gedenkdienst.