Biography

Ester Sigillò holds a PhD from the Institute of Social and Political Science at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence (Italy), following an MSc in International Relations of the European Union at the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium).

Her research interests include: transnational policies of democracy promotion, civil society in the Arab world, the nexus between religion and politics and Islamic activism in Tunisia.

Her thesis examined the dynamics of the politicization of the Tunisian associative field after 2011, through the analysis of the interaction of international and domestic factors on the interests and preferences of local associations.

During her PhD programme Ester served as a visiting research fellow at the Institut de recherche sur le Maghreb Contemporain (IRMC) in Tunis.  In the framework of her doctoral activities she also served as research fellow of the ERC project TARICA ‘Political and Socio-institutional Change in North Africa: Competition of Models and Diversity of Trajectories’, with research on the dynamics of pluralization of Tunisian Islamist Politics.

During her fellowship at the European University Institute she intends to pursue her research on the transformation of Islamist movements through a comparative perspective, as well as expand her dissertation into a book.

Since completing her doctoral studies, Ester has taught European Union politics and policies at Georgetown University (Florence Campus) and Euro-Mediterranean Relations at the Università per gli Stranieri di Perugia.