Anna Schwenck’s research lies at the intersection of cultural and political sociology. She is particularly interested in how cultural understandings, be they transnational or locally specific, shape political behaviour.

Her monograph Flexible Authoritarianism. Cultivating Ambition and Loyalty in Russia (published by Oxford University Press) shows how winners of globalization come to support authoritarianism.

It received the Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book in the Sociology of Culture in 2024
(American Sociological Association) and an honorable mention of the Council for European Studies in the framework of its European Studies Book Award in 2026. It was further shortlisted for the 2025 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award in Political Sociology (American Sociological Association).

Anna Schwenck’s more recent work investigates how musics, visuals and performances may lend political claims plausibility. This research theorizes the connection between culture and politics beyond sociology’s dominant focus on transatlantic societies.

Her new project asks why ideals of a good society vary widely in structurally disadvantaged regions. It tests the influential thesis that a perceived lack of social recognition explains widespread disregard for an open society. In connection with this, she inquires into the role of aesthetic practices for identifying one’s own and others’ social status. Yet, the social meaning of aesthetic practices does not exhaust itself in distinction. How do they provide some inhabitants with a sense of purpose and continuity? And how does this affect their notion of what a good society looks like?

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