Rate My Professor Stefan Bächtold

Stefan Bächtold is a Lecturer in Communication in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Monash University Malaysia. His academic background includes a PhD in Political Science from the University of Basel, awarded on 14 December 2016 for the thesis 'Managed pacification. Aid, peacebuilding, and the focus on results in Myanmar’s transition,' and an MA in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Fribourg, awarded on 27 August 2011. Bächtold's career blends critical academic research with substantial practical experience as an evaluator, practitioner, and trainer in international development and peacebuilding across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He has served as an associated researcher at swisspeace (University of Basel), including roles as in-country representative in Myanmar while advising a local civil society organisation, and program officer for the Peacebuilding Analysis & Impact program. In these capacities, he advised institutions such as the United Nations, the European Union, governments, international and local NGOs, and civil society organisations. Additionally, he was a visiting research fellow at the Technical University of Munich and specializes in evaluation methodologies, impact assessments, and collaborative learning processes for complex interventions and armed conflicts.

His current research investigates the interactions of digital technologies with the state and society in Southeast Asia, combining international political sociology and science and technology studies. This builds on his PhD analysis of discourses, practices, and power structures in international development and peacebuilding in Myanmar. Research interests encompass technologies, discourses, practices, and interventions in social transformations, armed conflicts, and state formations; professional practices and power structures in international development and peacebuilding; processes of state formation amid armed conflict; and the political dimensions of digital technologies, with a geographical focus on Myanmar and Southeast Asia. Key publications include 'Blackouts, whitelists, and ‘terrorist others’: The role of socio-technical imaginaries in Myanmar' (Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2023); 'Bad adopters or bad proponents of technology? Facebook and the violence against Muslims in Myanmar' (Third World Quarterly, 2024); 'Donor love will tear us apart. How complexity and learning marginalize accountability in peacebuilding interventions' (International Political Sociology, 2021); 'The smartphone and the coup. How Myanmar’s conflicts are entangled with digital technologies, policies, and violence' (International Journal of Public Policy, 2022); and 'Assembling drones, activists and oil palms: implications of a multi-stakeholder land platform for state formation in Myanmar' (The European Journal of Development Research, 2020).