Harris Mylonas

Harris Mylonas is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University and the editor-in-chief for Nationalities Papers, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press. He is the author of The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities, which was awarded the Peter Katzenstein Book Prize in September 2013 and the 2014 European Studies Book Award by the Council for European Studies. He has co-authored Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities. and has co-edited Enemies Within: The Global Politics of Fifth Columns as well as The Microfoundations of Diaspora Politics. He is currently working on another book project, Diaspora Management Logics. His documentary Searching for Andreas: Political Leadership in Times of Crisis (2018), which deals with the deep causes of the recent financial and political crisis in Greece, premiered at the 2018 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and won two awards at the 2019 International Documentary Festival of Ierapetra.

Mylonas has contributed to the ideas of nationalism, nation-building, state-building, fifth column politics and multilateralism through different publications and articles. Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz. "The Disturbing Return of the Fifth Column: How Enemies Within—Real and Imagined—Are Influencing Geopolitics", Foreign Affairs, August 26th 2022; Scott Radnitz and Harris Mylonas. "Putin’s warning about Russian ‘fifth columns’ has a long, sordid lineage", Washington Post's Blog The Monkey Cage, March 30 2022; Harris Mylonas. “Whither Nation-Building?” e-International Relations, May 8th 2013; Harris Mylonas. “The Challenges of Nation-Building in the Syrian Arab Republic”, in The Political Science of Syria’s War, POMEPS Briefing #22, December 18th 2013, pp. 57-59; Harris Mylonas. 2013. “Revisiting the Link: Politicizing Religion in Democratizing Countries”, Harvard International Review, Vol. 34, Issue 4 (Spring), pp. 48-52; Harris Mylonas and Emirhan Yorulmazlar. "Regional multilateralism: The next paradigm in global affairs ", CNN.com, January 14th 2011; Thomas Meaney and Harris Mylonas."The Pandora's box of sovereignty", Los Angeles Times, August 13th 2008; Wilder Bullard and Harris Mylonas. “This is no 1989 moment for the Arab world”, Guardian.co.uk, February 8, 2011; Keith Darden and Harris Mylonas. "The Promethean Dilemma in Third-Party Nation-Building", The Monkey Cage, September 20th 2012. His recent TEDx talk Nation-building: Past, Present, Future summarizes his perspective on nationalism and nation-building through his family history. Mylonas has also contributed to the analysis of the Greek government-debt crisis. Akis Georgakellos and Harris Mylonas. 2023. "An Election Won’t End Greece’s Troubles: Sunday’s vote is unlikely to yield a new government," Foreign Policy, May 19; Harris Mylonas. 2019. "After a decade of crisis, Greek politics are turning normal and more technocratic," The Washington Post blog, The Monkey Cage, July 14; Harris Mylonas. 2017. "The Volatile State of Greek Politics," Foreign Affairs, September 27; Akis Georgakellos and Harris Mylonas. 2016. "Between Trump and the Troika: Greece After the U.S. Election," Foreign Affairs, November 16; Akis Georgakellos and Harris Mylonas. 2015. "Greece just called new elections. Here’s the background you need to understand them," Foreign Affairs, August 20;Harris Mylonas. 2015. "The Agreekment that could break Europe: Euroskeptics, Eurocritics, and Life After the Bailout," Foreign Affairs, July 14; Harris Mylonas. 2014. "Democratic Politics in Times of Austerity: The Limits of Forced Reform in Greece," Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 12, No. 2 (June): 435-443; Harris Mylonas. 2013. “Greece,” European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook, Volume 52, Issue 1: 87–95; George Th. Mavrogordatos and Harris Mylonas. 2012. “Greece,” European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook, Volume 51, Issue 1: 122-128; George Th. Mavrogordatos and Harris Mylonas. 2011. “Greece,” European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook, Volume 50, Issue 7-8: 985-990; Harris Mylonas. 2011. "Is Greece a Failing Developed State?" in Botsiou, Konstantina E.; Klapsis, Antonis (eds.) The Konstantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy Yearbook 2011: The Global Economic Crisis and the Case of Greece. Springer. He is a member of the board of directors of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, an academic association dedicated to the understanding of ethnicity and nationalism with a geographic focus in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, and Eurasia. He also served as the chair of the Council for European Studies’ Historical Study of States and Regimes Research Network from 2019 to 2021.

Academic career
Mylonas completed his undergraduate degree at The University of Athens, received an M.A. in political science from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. He joined the faculty of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University in 2009. He also served as an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in 2008–09 and 2011–12 academic years. Mylonas served as Associate Dean for Research in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University during 2017–18.

Selected publications
Books
 * 2023. Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities. New York: Cambridge University Press (co-authored with Maya Tudor).
 * Review, by Øyvind Østerud, Journal of Peace Research.
 * Review, by Idlir Lika, Ethnic and Racial Studies.
 * 2012. The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities. New York: Cambridge University Press.
 * Review, by Karlo Basta, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Volume 49, Issue 01, March 2016, pp 173–174.
 * Review, by Jan Erk, Public Administration, Volume 92, Issue 2, June 2014, pp. 518–524.
 * Review, by Dmitry Gorenburg in Perspectives on Politics, Volume 12 / Issue 02 / June 2014, pp 512–513.
 * Review, by Neovi M. Karakatsanis Journal of Modern Greek Studies Volume 32, Number 1, May 2014 p. 210-12.
 * Review, by Serhun Al in International Studies Review, Volume 16, Issue 2, June 2014, pp. 323–324.
 * Review, by Jan Jakub Muś in Nationalities Papers, Volume 42, Issue 5, 2014, pp. 905–906.
 * Review, by Jan Erk in Nations and Nationalism, Volume 20, Issue 3, July 2014, pp. 594–595.
 * Review, by Roberto Belloni in Südosteuropa, 61 (2013), 4, p. 595-597.
 * Review, by Georgi Derluguian in Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, Volume 28/29, 2012/2013, pp. 399–401.
 * Review by Olena Podolian in Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 66, No. 10, December 2014, pp. 1735–1737.
 * Review, by A. Paczynska. CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries,  Oct 2013 v51 i2 p350(1).

Edited Volumes
 * 2022. Enemies Within: The Global Politics of Fifth Columns. New York: Oxford University Press (co-edited with Scott Radnitz).
 * Review, by Siniša Malešević, Nationalities Papers, March 2023.
 * Review, by Yana Volkova, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Volume 28, Issue 4, November 2022, pp 506-508.
 * 2022. The Microfoundations of Diaspora Politics. New York: Routledge (co-edited with Alexandra Délano Alonso).

Articles
 * 2022. "Pandemic Nationalism," Nationalities Papers, Vol. 50, Issue 1: 3-12 (with Ned Whalley).
 * 2022. "Nation-Building and the Role of Identity in Civil Wars," Ethnopolitics, Vol. 21, Issue 1: 1-21 (with Kendrick Kuo).
 * 2021. "Nationalism: What We Know and What We Still Need to Know" Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 24: 109-132. (with Maya Tudor).
 * 2021. "Exchange on the quantitative measurement of ethnic and national identity" Nations and Nationalism, Volume 27, Issue 1: 22-40. (with Daniel Bochsler, Elliott Green, Erin Jenne, and Andreas Wimmer).
 * 2020. "The Determinants of Successful Nation-building: Macro-sociological Political Modernization and Political Alliance Structures" Nationalities Papers.
 * 2020. "Nation-Building," Oxford Bibliographies in International Relations.
 * 2019."Nation‐building policies in the Balkans: an Ottoman or a manufactured legacy?," Nations and Nationalism, Volume 25, Issue 3: 866-887.
 * 2019."The microfoundations of diaspora politics: unpacking the state and disaggregating the diaspora," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Volume 45, Issue 4: 473-491 (with Alexandra Délano Alonso)
 * 2019."Foreign policy priorities and ethnic return migration policies: group-level variation in Greece and Serbia," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Volume 45, Issue 4: 613-635 (with Marko Žilović)
 * 2017. “Methodological Challenges in the Study of Stateless Nationalist Territorial Claims,” Territory, Politics, Governance, Volume 5, Issue 2: 145- 157 (with Nadav Shelef).
 * 2016. “Threats to Territorial Integrity, National Mass Schooling, and Linguistic Commonality,” Comparative Political Studies, Volume 49, No. 11: 1446-1479 (with Keith Darden).
 * 2015. “Methodological Problems in the Study of Nation-Building: Behaviorism and Historicist Solutions in Political Science,” Social Science Quarterly, Volume 96, Issue 3: 740–758.
 * 2014. "Which Land is Our Land? Domestic Politics and Change in the Territorial Claims of Stateless Nationalist Movements,” Security Studies, Vol. 23, Issue 4, 754-786 (with Nadav Shelef).
 * 2014. "Democratic Politics in Times of Austerity: The Limits of Forced Reform in Greece," Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 12, No. 2 (June): 435-443.
 * 2014. “Interstate Relations, Perceptions, And Power Balance: Explaining China’s Policies Toward Ethnic Groups, 1949-1965,” Security Studies, Vol. 23, 148-181 (with Enze Han).
 * 2013. “Ethnic Return Migration, Selective Incentives, and the Right to Freedom of Movement in Post-Cold War Greece”, in Willem Maas (ed.). Democratic Citizenship and the Free Movement of People  (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff).
 * 2012. “The Promethean Dilemma: Third-Party State-building in Occupied Territories”, Ethnopolitics, Issue 1, March, pp. 85–93 (with Keith Darden).
 * 2011. "Is Greece a Failing Developed State?", in Botsiou, Konstantina E.; Klapsis, Antonis (eds.) The Konstantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy Yearbook 2011: The Global Economic Crisis and the Case of Greece. Springer.
 * 2010. “Assimilation and its Alternatives: Caveats in the Study of Nation-Building Policies", In Rethinking Violence: States and Non-State Actors in Conflict, eds. Adria Lawrence and Erica Chenoweth. BCSIA Studies in International Security, MIT Press.
 * 2008. “When do Votes Count? Regime Type, Electoral Conduct, and Political Competition in Africa.” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 41, No. 11, 1466-1491 (with Nasos Roussias).