Vivien A. Schmidt is an American academic of political science and international relations. At Boston University, she is the Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration, Professor Emerita of International Relations in the Pardee School of Global Studies, and Professor Emerita of Political Science. Currently, she is Visiting Fellow at the Schuman Center of the European University Institute in Florence and Honorary Professor at LUISS University in Rome. Schmidt's scholarly research focuses on the role of ideas and discourse in the dynamics of change. She is the author or editor of over a dozen books. Her epistemological work on “discursive institutionalism” explores the ideational and discursive processes in comparative politics, public policy, and political economy, and has appeared in major journals such as the Annual Review of Political Science, the European Political Science Review, the Journal of European Public Policy, the Review of International Political Economy, and Public Administration, among others.

Schmidt’s talk will focus on what she calls the ‘fourth’ neo-institutionalism, discursive institutionalism, which is a methodological approach to explanation focused on the substantive content of idea and the discursive processes of interaction in an institutional context. It is complementary to other areas of institutionalism including rationalist, historical, and sociological. Schmidt will discuss the foundations of the approach, the many different methodologies it encompasses, and the nature of ideational and discursive power, plus consider different examples of its application. She will announce her new book entitled:  The Power of Ideas and Discourse in Political Analysis: A Discursive Institutionalist Perspective, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2025.