Mgr. Klára Kosová, Ph.D.

Klára Kosová is a researcher at the Institute of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague. She completed her PhD under a joint (cotutelle) agreement between Charles University and the University of Groningen, defending her dissertation cum laude at Groningen's Faculty of Arts. Her research bridges political science, cognitive linguistics, and media studies, focusing on democratic legitimacy — how it is constructed, understood, and eroded in public discourse — and on the role of (pre-)figurative poetic acts in shaping political thought and communication. Her regional expertise is the Balkans, with a particular focus on Bulgaria, and she speaks fluent Bulgarian. 

Alongside her theoretical research focus, Klára is committed to bringing computational methods into the humanities and social sciences. She is a co-founder of the Center for Digital Humanities Integration (C4DHI) at the Institute of International Studies, which offers a certified program teaching students R and machine learning methods for social science research. She currently works on TWIN4DEM (EU Horizon Europe), using large language models to detect early warning signs of democratic backsliding, and has recently joined the Peace Research Center Prague as part of the INTERFER project on foreign interference.

Monographs

Chapters in monographs

Articles

• Kosová K. (2022). Wealth defence strategies of Bulgarian Oligarchs in the 1990s. Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 22(3), 361-379. UT-WOS link
• Kosová K. (2024). THROUGH THE LENS OF MEDIATIZATION: GOVERNANCE LEGITIMACY IN THE WAKE OF BULGARIAN PROTESTS IN 2020 AND 2021. Studia Politica, 24(2), 359-388.

Contributions in the conference proceedings

• Kosová K. (2025). The Case for Metaphors in Public Discourse. Imaginary of Bulgarian Governance through the Prism of Metaphors. Malach Center for Visual History on its 15th Anniversary: Compendium of Papers of the Prague Visual History and Digital Humanities Conference 2025 (pp. 99-121).

Current Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe

Introduction into Digital Humanities and Advanced Computer Literacy

Politics and International Relations (In Czech)

Transnational History of Contemporary Europe

2026-2027: Martina Roeselová Memorial Fellowship. IOCB Foundation. 

2026-2028: Foreign Interference in the Context of Geopolitical and Technological Change (INTERFER). Johannes Amos Comenius Operational Programme (OP JAK). Project number CZ.02.01.01/00/23_025/0008692. 

2025–2027: Strengthening Democratic Resilience Through Digital Twins (TWIN4DEM). EU Horizon Europe. Project number 101178061. 

2024–2029: Peace Research Center Prague. Charles University. Project number UNCE 24/SSH/18.

2020-2024: Plurality of Memories. 4EU+ Alliance. Project number EDU 2020/F2/21-2024

• The transition from non-democratic regimes to democracy and its role in shaping the perceptions, values, and mental images of a given society
• Democratic legitimacy — how it is constructed, understood, and eroded in public discourse
• The role of conceptual metaphor and (pre-)figurative poetic acts in human thought, political communication, and narrative-building
• Bulgarian politics and society; regional expertise in the Balkans (fluent in Bulgarian)
• Computational methods in the humanities and social sciences (R, machine learning)