Emma Rosenberg

Religion and Politics; Citizenship and Nationalism, Far-Right Politics

Emma Rosenberg is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at NYU. She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame in 2022. Rosenberg is a comparativist with a specialization in nationalism and religion and politics, with regional expertise in Europe and the United States. Rosenberg's book project, Rally Around the Steeple: Nativist Religious Rhetoric in Central Europe, explores the weaponization of religious identities by nativist parties in Central Europe. Based on an original dataset of nativist party religious rhetoric, qualitative interviews with elected officials, an original survey, and comparative historical analysis, her research demonstrates that religious rhetoric allows nativist parties to pursue ethno-nationalist agendas in a socially-desirable way. More specifically, despite depicting themselves as standard-bearers for the "people," nativist parties prioritize exclusive citizenship, with a focus on demarcating who the "people" are not rather than who the people are. 

Rosenberg's research interests lie at the intersection between nationalism, religious identities, and citizenship. Her research has been published in Party Politics, Politics and Religion, Nationalities Papers, and Politics, Groups, and Identities. 

Rosenberg received a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School, Tufts University  in 2016 and received her BA in Medieval Studies and History from the University of Chicago in 2008. Prior to Notre Dame, Rosenberg worked as Director of Communications for a Chicago city councilman and on campaigns in the Chicagoland area.

2021 APSA Centennial Center Research Grant ($2,500); 2019 Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts Grant ($3,750); 2019 Nanovic Institute Academic Year Research Grant ($3,000); 2019 and 2018 Kellogg Institute for Int’l Studies Research Grant ($10,500); 2015 Topol Scholarship in Nonviolent Resistance ($4,000); 2009-2010 Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Grant in Germany

Rosenberg, Emma. “Barbarians at the Gate: Nativist Religious Rhetoric and Defining the ‘People’ by Who They are Not,” Forthcoming in Party Politics.

Rosenberg, Emma. “Taking the ‘Race’ out of ‘Master Race’: The Evolving Role of the Jew in White Supremacist Discourse,” Forthcoming in Nationalities Papers. 

Hoffman, Michael and Emma Rosenberg. “Religious Behavior and Veil Bans in Europe.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 3 (2022): 1-22. 

Rosenberg, Emma, and Amy Erica Smith. “What Drives Religious Politicking? An Analysis of 24 Democratic Elections.” Politics and Religion 14, no. 4 (2021): 735-763. 

Rosenberg, Emma. “Amish and Hasidic Litigation: A Survival Strategy.” Journal of Church and State 63, no. 3 (2021): 485-505. 

Rosenberg, Emma. “Germany’s Christian Democrats.” In the Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion. Oxford University Press. February 2019.