Bernadett Sebály is a political sociologist and former organizer supporting the
organizing sector in Europe.
Her organizing experience is rooted in grassroots housing organizing with
homeless people and low-income tenants (2009-2017), as well as a one-year
professional development program in the U.S. with Virginia Organizing (2012).
Drawing on this experience, she played a leadership role in building the first
Hungarian community organizing program with the Civil College Foundation,
serving as a mentor and trainer (2014-2018). She has been around ECON
since then. She helped establish the theoretical foundations of the practice in
Hungary by co-editing a book on the fundamentals of organizing (2016) and
coordinated Civilizáció, a Hungarian coalition of CSOs, during a period of
repressive government measures (2017).
Since transitioning to academia, Bernadett has contributed to ECON’s work as
an expert. Her research focuses on how social movements can effectively
influence policy and politics, and how they can develop counter-hegemonic
potential to leverage major political and cultural shifts. In 2020-2021, she led a
two-year participatory action research process with five ECON member
organizations from five Eastern European countries. They documented and
analyzed their organizing strategy, helping to construct the region’s organizing
history.
Bernadett currently works at the Central European University on a research
and learning project that distills effective anti-authoritarian strategies from
around the globe to protect and restore democratic institutions. She is a
member of the editorial team of the Community Organizing Journal, a new
journal dedicated to advancing the scholarship and practice of community
organizing. She earned her PhD in political science and public policy at the
Central European University and was a Visiting Graduate Scholar at the P3
Lab at SNF Agora at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD), a lab
specializing in community organizing research.