Dr. Melanie H. Ram

Professor

Ph.D. The George Washington University

Office: McKee Fisk 212

Phone: 559-278-5324

E-mail: mram@csufresno.edu

Dr. Ram (Ph.D. George Washington University) studies international organizations (IOs), European integration, Central and Eastern Europe, international development, and human rights. Her work is published in Global Governance, Journal of International Organizations Studies, Comparative European Politics, Studies in Comparative International Development, Europe-Asia Studies, Ethnopolitics, and JEMIE (Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe), as well as other peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. Her most recent research explores the cooperation between intergovernmental organizations on overlapping issues, both on a global scale on specific issues and as part of regional cooperation in Southeastern Europe. In prior research, she examined IO agenda-setting, the EU’s impact on domestic policies in Central and Eastern Europe, NGO advocacy, and the impact of migration on minority representation. A large body of her published work has focused on post-communist Central and Eastern Europe and Roma inclusion and discrimination in the context of IO policy and EU membership conditionality.

A recipient of the Fulbright Schuman European Union Affairs US Scholar Award (2022-2023) for research on regional international organizations, Dr. Ram’s previous research has been supported by the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), the Wilson Center, the Cosmos Club Foundation, and the George Washington University Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, among others.

Dr. Ram has been recognized by Fresno State with the College of Social Sciences Faculty Service Award (2020) and the Provost's Promising New Faculty Award (2011). She has been actively involved in the university at all levels, including as Department Chair for 4 years, International Relations MA Program Director (4 years), Director of the College of Social Sciences Honors Program (2 years), and co-Chair of the College International Education Committee. She has served as an elected Senator on the Academic Senate for over a decade, an elected university-wide Senator on the Senate Executive Committee (8+ years), and has been appointed or elected to more than two dozen other university committees and task forces.

Dr. Ram teaches undergraduate courses on International Politics (PLSI 120), International Law and Organization (PLSI 126), the Politics of Foreign Aid (PLSI 122), and International Human RIghts (PLSI 127). During her time at Fresno State, Dr. Ram has also taught at universities in Ghana and Spain as a Visiting Professor through the University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC).  Prior to her current position, she served as an advisor and coordinator on U.S. foreign aid policy in the Washington, DC office of JICA, the Government of Japan’s main development assistance agency.  

 Dr. Ram's CV.

Select peer-reviewed publications:

“European Union Roma Policy: Under Construction” in Research Handbook on Minority Politics in the European Union, eds. Tove H. Malloy and Balázs Vizi, 250-270. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022.

“Regime Complexity and a Galvanizing Idea: Development Goals and Intergovernmental Organization Coordination,” Journal of International Organizations Studies 10, no. 2 (2019): 33-53.

"International Organization Autonomy and Issue Emergence: The World Bank’s Roma Inclusion Agenda,” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 23, no. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 2017): 565 - 582.

"International Policy and Roma Education in Europe: Essential Inputs or Centralized Distractions?"  Inclusion and Education Rights of Roma Children.  Special Issue of the Alberta Journal of Education Research, 61, no. 4 (Winter 2015): 465 - 483. 

"Europeanized Hypocrisy: Roma Inclusion and Exclusion in Central and Eastern Europe," Journal of Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe, 13, no. 3 (2014): 15-44.

"European Integration, Migration and Representation: The Case of Roma in France," Ethnopolitics 13, no. 3 (May 2013): 203 - 224.

"Legacies of EU Conditionality: Explaining Post-Accession Adherence to Pre-Accession Rules on Roma."
Europe-Asia Studies 64, no. 7(2012): 1191-1218.

"Lost in Transition?  Europeanization and the Roma."  L'Europe en Formation 364(Summer 2012): 417-434.

"Roma Advocacy and EU Conditionality: Not One without the Other?" Comparative European Politics 9 (March 2011): 217 - 241.

"Interests, Norms and Advocacy: Explaining the Emergence of the Roma onto the EU's Agenda." Ethnopolitics 9, no. 2 (June 2010).

"Romania: From Laggard to Leader?"  In Minority Rights in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Bernd Rechel (New York: Routledge 2009).

"The Roma" in Minority Rights in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Bernd Rechel (New York: Routledge 2009) (with P. Vermeersch).

"Anti-Discrimination Policy and the Roma: Assessing the Impact of EU Enlargement" published in Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy 3(November 2007): 491-514.

"Democratization Through European Integration: The Case of Minority Rights in the Czech Republic and Romania" published in Studies in Comparative International Development 38(Summer 2003): 28 - 56.

"Minority Relations in Multiethnic Societies: Assessing the European Union Factor in Romania."  Romanian Journal of Society and Politics 1, no. 2, special issue, "Romania and the European Union" (Nov. 2001):63-90.