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). She works in the areas of democracy, authoritarianism, and promotional politics (such as nation branding). She has a geographical focus on Southeast Asia and a notable country expertise on Thailand.
Petra is the author of Branding Authoritarian Nations, a monograph by Routledge (2023) that 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 received invitations to present her book at the University of Oxford, LSE, and Stockholm University (among others).
Her other academic work has been published in leading disciplinary and area studies journals, including International Political Science Review, Geopolitics, Politics and the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs. Her work has been funded by the United States Institute of Peace and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD).
In addition to her research, Petra is also actively engaged in high-impact policy work. She advises officials at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and produces policy reports for WFD. Her country expertise attracts regular media attention - she has given live media commentaries on important political developments for leading media corporations, such as BBC, France24, and ABC Australia.
Petra is the founder, managing editor and a co-host of CEDAR's People, Power, Politics podcast that brings the latest insights into the factors that are shaping - and re-shaping - our political world. She is also a former managing editor and host of the Nordic Asia Podcast series, where she interviewed fellow Asia researchers and specialists about their research work and publications.