Szinan Radi

Szinan Radi is a Max Weber Fellow at the Department of History, European University Institute (EUI), Florence. He is affiliated with the Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies, a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship supporting early-career scholars in the social sciences and humanities.

His research lies at the intersection of socio-economic history, economic sociology, and economic anthropology, focusing on the political economy and lived experience of money in postwar Eastern Europe. He investigates how money functioned not merely as a medium of exchange but as a form of power shaping citizens’ perceptions of time, value, and the common good, particularly in socialist Hungary (1945–1958). His current project explores Eastern Europe’s economic and cultural ties with the Middle East from the 1960s onward, analyzing how these shaped regional views on global integration and the rise of populist multipolar globalization.

His recent publications examine monetary practices and political transformation in socialist contexts. The 2023 article in Contemporary European History analyzes the subjective valuation of money and its political implications, while the 2022 article in Europe-Asia Studies investigates everyday economic life in Eastern Europe. Both reflect a broader scholarly trend examining the cultural and social dimensions of economic systems under socialism.

• BASEES Postgraduate Best Article Prize (2024)

Szinan Radi has held postdoctoral positions at NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and the University of Cambridge. He received his PhD from the University of Nottingham, funded by the ESRC. He is currently completing a book manuscript for Oxford University Press titled Contesting Money: The Politics of Time, Value, and the Common Good in Postwar Hungary, 1945–1958. He is mentored by Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol at EUI and participates in research clusters on Finance and Society and Inequality, Welfare and Social Justice. No advisees are listed.

He is actively engaged in interdisciplinary research that bridges historical analysis with economic sociology and anthropology, contributing to a deeper understanding of how economic systems are embedded in social and political life.