Dr Olli Hellmann
Qualifications: PhD (Birmingham), MA (Birmingham), Magister Artium (Heidelberg)
About Olli
Olli Hellmann joined the University of Waikato in 2019. Prior to this, Olli held positions at the University of Sussex (2013-2019) and Durham University (2010-2013).
Olli specialises in the comparative analysis of political institutions, with a specific geographical focus on East Asia. His more recent work has explored questions of democratisation and autocratic regime resilience, and has been published as a special issue of International Political Science Review (2018) and as an edited volume with Cambridge University Press (Stateness and Democracy in East Asia, 2020). His current research project explores legitimacy narratives in non-democratic regimes, focusing in particular on visual storytelling.
Olli has also published on party systems and electoral politics, and takes a special interest in issues of corruption—not only from an empirical perspective (Crime, Law and Social Change, 2017; Studies in Comparative International Development, 2020) but also from the viewpoint of critical theory (Third World Quarterly, 2019).
Olli's research has been funded through several competitive grants, including from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the British Academy, and the Academy of Korean Studies. In 2016, Olli was appointed a POSCO Fellow of the East-West Center, Honolulu.
Olli also maintains his own photography practice (ollihellmann.net).
Expertise
Asian Politics; International Relations; Politics
Research Interests
Dictatorships; visual analysis; democratisation; electoral politics; party systems; corruption.
Recent Publications
Hellmann, O., & Oppermann, K. (2022). Propaganda photographs as a tool of North Korean public diplomacy: an experimental analysis of the Kim Jong-un effect. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 1-27. doi:10.1080/09557571.2022.2065460
Hellmann, O. (2022). Visual narratives of environmental change: collective memory and identity at New Zealand heritage sites. Visual Communication, 147035722210789. doi:10.1177/14703572221078974
Hellmann, O., & Oppermann, K. (2022). Photographs as instruments of public diplomacy: China’s visual storytelling during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 17(2), 177-215. doi:10.1163/1871191x-bja10097
Hellmann, O. (2021). The dictator’s screenplay: collective memory narratives and the legitimacy of communist rule in East Asia. Democratization, 28(4), 659-683. doi:10.1080/13510347.2020.1849146