Nation branding, political branding/marketing, governance, forms and techniques of state power, authoritarianism and its resilience, elections and electoral violence, nationalism, national identity, gastrodiplomacy and food nationalism, and Southeast Asian politics (with a focus on Thailand).
Petra Desatová is a postdoctoral researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. She gained her PhD from the School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds, passing with no corrections. Her doctoral thesis, which examined the relationship between nation branding and political legitimation in non-democratic regimes on the example of military-ruled Thailand (2014-2016), was recognised for excellence by the Anglo-Thai Society (UK) and the School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds.
Besides her PhD research, Petra’s other research work has been concerned with the issue of electoral violence and its prevention. She has been a researcher on a project funded by the United States Institute of Peace that examines the role of peace messaging in the recent 2019 general election in Thailand.
Petra has presented her research work at academic conferences in Thailand, Europe, the UK and the US and has given briefings to research analysists at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She has also given media interviews to Prachatai English, an online Thai newspaper, and BBC Thai and written short articles and blogposts for the Council on Foreign Relations, Thai Data Points and Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia.