Rick Fawn is Professor of International Relations at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom, and a specialist on international security, with a geographic concentration on the former communist space. He has conducted research and engaged with policymakers and activists in almost all post-communist states, from the Baltic, through Central Europe to Southeastern Europe, and across Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

His publications include 15 books, such as Castle on a Hill: The Visegrad Group, Regionalism, and the Remaking of Europe (Georgetown University Press, 2024); International Organizations and Internal Conditionality: Making Norms Matters (2013) and as editor, Globalising the Regional: Regionalising the Global (Cambridge University Press, 2009). He has authored dozens of refereed book contributions and journal articles, such as in Democratization, Central Europe, Europe-Asia Studies, Geopolitics, International Affairs and Orbis.  His next book, edited with US colleague Jason Bruder, is scheduled for publication in November 2026, and entitled The Contested Black Sea Region