Biography

Marylou Hamm is a political sociologist whose research focuses on European instruments and professionals accompanying (member-)state reforms. Before coming to the EUI, she was a doctor-assistant at the College of Europe (Bruges). She holds a PhD in political and social sciences from the Université libre de Bruxelles and Sciences Po Strasbourg (double degree). In her thesis entitled ‘The conditions of Europe. A sociology of European technical assistance in the Greek crisis (2011-2015)’, she analyses the intervention of European staff in the implementation of macroeconomic conditionalities in Greece.
As a Max Weber Fellow, Marylou’s research will focus on the creation of a transnational market of expertise on ‘capacity building’ for member states. To do so, she puts forward an innovative approach that brings together a micro sociology of European instruments and professionals, on the one hand, and a macro-political theory of European integration and national sovereignty, on the other. In addition, she coordinates, together with colleagues, collective research on the growing use of consultancies by European administrations.
Marylou has taught extensively in the fields of European studies, sociology and political science. She has served as a lecturer, at the postgraduate and undergraduate levels, for the ULB, the College of Europe, for Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Paris-Dauphine. Her main research interests are crisis management and conditionality, technical assistance and expertise, European integration, conflicts of legitimacies and practices of resistance.