Siobhán Smith

Siobhán Amelia Smith is an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a PhD Researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. She was a visiting researcher at the University of the Free State, South Africa, and holds an MA in International Relations from Leiden University, the Netherlands. 

Her thesis, titled Settler Decolonisation: An International History of Rhodesia, Zimbabwe and the United Nations, 1945-1980, explores how Rhodesian and Zimbabwean political actors used the UN as an arena for negotiating legitimacy for their competing visions of a post-imperial state. It also examines how different parts of the UN responded to Rhodesia’s 1965 UDI, including the Security Council’s first-ever implementation of sanctions. By situating Southern Rhodesia within the wider global structures of settler colonialism and post-1960 decolonisation, the thesis reveals how the economic and political power of the ‘White World’ limited the UN’s capacity to enforce majority rule despite the growing authority of anti-colonial norms. Her thesis presents new and historical perspectives on the UN as an actor in international relations, particularly examining how racialized hierarchies of economics and diplomacy influenced the international order in the mid-twentieth century, issues that remain dominant features of the current international system.

Siobhán has contributed to the edited volume Antiliberal Internationalism in the Twentieth Century (Routledge, 2025) and has two forthcoming publications for H-Diplo and International Organization.