Centre for Democratic Politics: Book launch - Petra Alderman
- Date: Wednesday 8 May 2024, 15:00 – 16:00
- Location: Social Sciences Building - Room 14.33
- Cost: Free
The CDP is delighted to be hosting the launch of Dr Petra Alderman's new book, titled 'Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political Legitimation and Strategic National Myths in Military-Ruled Thailand.'
Dr Alderman's book addresses the following questions: why do authoritarian nations brand themselves? And how do they understand and use this practice? In this talk, Dr Petra Alderman will introduce her new book Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political Legitimation and Strategic National Myths in Military-Ruled Thailand (Routledge, 2023). The book offers a novel approach to the study of nation branding as a strategy for political legitimation in authoritarian regimes using the example of military-ruled Thailand. She will present some of the book’s core ideas and findings and show that – at least in the context of authoritarian regimes – nation branding is an inherently inward-looking strategy aimed at shaping the social attitudes and behaviours of the nation’s citizens in line with the government’s domestic agenda and legitimation needs.
Biography
Dr Petra Alderman (prev. Desatova) is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Leadership for Inclusive and Democratic Politics at the University of Birmingham, and a Research Fellow of the Birmingham’s Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability & Representation (CEDAR). Her main areas of research expertise are nation branding, authoritarian politics, elections and electoral management, and the politics of Thailand. Her work has been published in Politics, Geopolitics, and Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs among others. She is the founder and managing editor of CEDAR’s People, Power, Politics podcast, which she regularly co-hosts. She obtained her PhD from the University of Leeds.