26 Jan 2018
Political scientist awarded PhD
Simon Wüthrich, a doctoral researcher in political science at the WTI since 2015, was awarded his PhD at a ceremony of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Bern on 23 January.
He successfully completed his PhD on preferential trade negotiations in December 2017 graduating summa cum laude.
Simon's dissertation analyses feedback effects and the role of information at the interface between domestic politics and international negotiation processes and outcomes.The empirical chapters of his dissertation cover the political economy determinants of negotiation duration, the nexus between WTO disputes and the design of preferential trade agreements, as well as the drivers of media reporting on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union.
Simon, who was part of the NCCR Trade Regulation project, also collaborated on the Design of Trade Agreements (DESTA) database that last year won the IPES Best New Dataset Award.
During his time at the WTI, he additionally taught quantitative methodology and research design courses on the MILE master’s programme.
Since August 2017, Simon has been working as the deputy head of the Americas section at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
For further inquiries, he can be contacted at simon11.wuethrich@bluewin.ch