Anna Schwenck’s research lies at the intersection of cultural and political sociology. She is particularly interested in how cultural understandings, be they transnational or locally specific, shape political behaviour. She studied the resonances between authoritarianism and neoliberalism in Russia, pandemic and science skepticism in German-speaking countries, and processes of re-traditionalization in popular music cultures. Her recent work investigates the role of liberation songs and narratives in conventional and contentious politics in South Africa.

Her monograph Flexible Authoritarianism. Cultivating Ambition and Loyalty in Russia (published by Oxford University Press) received the American Sociological Association’s Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book in the Sociology of Culture in 2024.