Curriculum Vitae

Bibliography

Research interests: comparative and international political economy, growth regimes/models, peripheral innovation, SMEs, semi-periphery, inclusive growth, knowledge economy, welfare state regimes, labour markets, gender

SHORT BIO

Dr Sonja Avlijaš is Assistant Professor in Economic Policy and Development and CERGE-EI Career Integration Fellow (2024-2027). She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), awarded in 2016. Dr Avlijaš was Associate Researcher at the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP) at Sciences Po in Paris from October 2018 – November 2023, prior to which she was a post-doctoral researcher there (2016-2018). During 2022, she was the Wayne Vuchinich Fellow at Stanford University, California.

Between 2020-2022, Dr Avlijaš was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Economics, where she implemented the project titled “Southeast Europe’s emerging growth advocates: Domestic firms, technology and economic governance in institutionally weak states” – SEEGROW.

Dr Avlijaš has two main research interests: 1) innovation and development in the semi-periphery, including the role of small and medium enterprises as agents of innovation; and 2) growth and development in the Central Eastern and Southeastern European semi-periphery, focusing on the gender implications of these processes and their connections to welfare state reforms. She has also researched welfare states and growth regimes in Western democracies, as well as epistemological foundations of knowledge production on the semi-periphery. She frequently provides consulting expertise to the European Commission DG EMPL on social policy reforms and non-standard work. Prior to her academic career, she also worked at the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office of the Government of Serbia.

ACADEMIC SERVICE

Co-organiser of the ESPAnet Virtual Workshop, with Cecilia Bruzelius (University of Tübingen) and Philip Rathgeb (University of Edinburgh)

Vice President of the European Association of Comparative Economic Studies (EACES) (2022-2024)

AWARDS

2021   LSEE-CEFTA Best paper award – First runner-up

2018   Best PhD Thesis Award, European Association for Comparative Economic Studies (EACES)

2018   “Andjelka Milic” Award, Best social science contribution, Serbian Sociological Association

2016   Early Career Researcher Award, Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE)

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Avlijaš, S. and Garzou-Katsouyanni, K. 2024. “Firm-Centered Approaches to Overcoming Semi-Peripheral Constraints”, Studies in Comparative International Development, OnlineFirst, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-024-09434-2

Hughson, M and S. Avlijaš. 2024. “Theorizing from a Void: Epistemic Lessons from the Semiperiphery”. In An Invitation to Non-Hegemonic World Sociology, edited by Eric Macé, pp. 105-124. The Global Epistemics Book Series, Rowman & Littlefield International.

Avlijaš, S., Medić, P. & Udovički, K. 2023. “Reconfiguring FDI dependency: SMEs as emerging stakeholders in an advanced peripheral export-led growth model“ Competition & Change, OnlineFirst, https://doi.org/10.1177/10245294231209277 (Open Access)

Avlijaš, S. 2023. “Women, Work and Labour Market Policy”. In Handbook of Labour Market Policy in Advanced Democracies, edited by Daniel Clegg and Niccolo Durazzi, pp.103-115. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Avlijaš, S. 2023. “In AI We Trust: Power, Illusion and Control of Predictive Algorithms” by Helga Nowotny, Polity Press 2021, p.184. European Journal of Social Theory 26(3), https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310221076309

Avlijaš, S. 2022. “How regional integration agreements can foster inclusive growth: Lessons from exporting SMEs in the Western Balkans” Economic Annals 67(235): 67-93. https://doi.org/10.2298/EKA2235067A

Avlijaš, S. 2022. “What Is the Role of Small and Medium Enterprises in the “Open Balkans” Initiative?”, Quarterly Monitor of Economic Trends and Policies in Serbia (QM), issue 68. Open access at: https://fren.org.rs/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Highlight-1-1.pdf

Fisun, O., Ryabov, A., Avlijaš, S., Kyrali, J. 2022. “On Bálint Magyar and Bálint Madlovics’s The Anatomy of Post-communist Regimes—a conceptual framework, Budapest and New York: CEU Press, 2020”. Socio-Economic Review 20(2): 863–875. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac003

Avlijaš, S. 2022. “Explaining the contrasting trajectories of Baltic and Visegrad countries”. In The World Politics of Social Investment. Volume II: Political Dynamics of Reforms, edited by Julian L. Garritzmann, Silja Häusermann and Bruno Palier, pp. 209-227, Oxford University Press.

Avlijaš, S. 2022. ’The Post-Crisis Developmental State. Perspectives from the Global Periphery”, by Tamas Gerocs and Judit Ricz, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, pp. 337. Economic Annals 67(232): 193-198.

Avlijaš, S. 2022. “Can “Winner-takes-most” dynamics of regional economic integration be avoided in the Western Balkans? Lessons on resourcefulness from smaller economic agents”, LSEE-CEFTA Research Papers on International Trade, Paper No.5 (April), London School of Economics and Political Science, https://www.lse.ac.uk/LSEE-Research-on-South-Eastern-Europe/Assets/Documents/Research/LSEE-CEFTA-Network/Papers/LSEE-CEFTA-Paper-No5.pdf

Avlijaš, S. 2021. “Security for whom? Inequality and Human Dignity in Times of the Pandemic”. In Pandemics, Society and Politics: Critical Reflections on Covid-19, edited by Gerard Delanty, pp.227-242. De Gruyter, Berlin, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110713350

Avlijaš, S., Hassel, A., Palier, B. 2021. “Growth Strategies and Welfare Reforms in Europe”. In Growth & Welfare in Advanced Capitalist Economies. How Have Growth Regimes Evolved?, edited by Bruno Palier and Anke Hassel, pp. 372-436. Oxford University Press, ISBN: 9780198866176

Avlijaš, S. 2021. “Care chains and social reproduction of privilege before and after Covid-19”, Discover Society: New Series, 1(4). https://doi.org/10.51428/dsoc.2021.04.0006

Avlijaš, S. 2021. “Feminism and the semiperiphery: Marina Hughson’s tools for knowledge creation”. In Feminism, activism, politics: Production of knowledge in the semiperiphery. Proceedings in honour of Marina Blagojević Hughson, edited by Sanja Ćopić and Zorana Antonijević, pp. 67-86. Belgrade: Institute of criminological and sociological research

Avlijaš, S. 2020. “Beyond neoliberalism: Uncovering the welfare state behind the Baltic growth model”, Europe-Asia Studies, 72(4): 614-643. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2019.1709622

Avlijaš, S. 2020. “Growth models and female labor in post-socialist Eastern Europe”, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 27(3): 534–561. https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxz012

Hassel, A., Palier, B., Avlijaš, S. 2020. “The pursuit of growth. Growth regimes, growth strategies and welfare reforms in advanced capitalist economies”, Stato e Mercato, 118: 36-71. DOI: 10.1425/97509

Avlijaš, S. 2020. “Comparing social protection schemes for the self-employed across EU-27: Focus on sickness, accidents at work and occupational diseases, and unemployment benefits”, SSM Research Note. European Commission. https://socialprotection.org/discover/publications/comparing-social-protection-schemes-self-employed-across-eu-27-focus-sickness

Avlijaš, S. 2019. “The dynamism of the new economy: Non-standard employment and access to social security in EU-28”, LSE ’Europe in Question’ Discussion Paper Series, Paper No. 141, February, London School of Economics, https://www.lse.ac.uk/european-institute/Assets/Documents/LEQS-Discussion-Papers/LEQSPaper141.pdf