Majda Ruge

Dr. Majda Ruge is a senior policy fellow with the United States programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in Berlin. Her work focuses on US foreign policy, transatlantic relations, US-EU relations, nationalism, new-right populism, illiberal democracies, state capture, and the Western Balkans. Her recent research and commentary has examined the factional struggles shaping Trump’s foreign and security policy, the implications of Trump’s National Security Strategy for Europe, US policy towards Venezuela and Iran, J.D. Vance’s foreign-policy outlook, Russia-Ukraine negotiations, tariffs, and the security risks facing the Western Balkans.

Before joining ECFR, Ruge spent three years as a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She has twice testified as an expert witness before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Western Balkans. From 2014 to 2016, Ruge lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she was associated with the Gulf Research Center. Between 2012 and 2014, she was a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer at the Otto-Suhr-Institute of the Free University of Berlin, where she taught courses on international relations and nationalism.