Hilde Eliassen Restad

Associate Professor

Hilde Eliassen Restad

Hilde is an Associate Professor of International Studies at Oslo Nye University College.

She grew up in the northernmost town in the world, Hammerfest, Norway. At 16, she traveled to New Mexico, USA to attend the United World College of the American West (AHUWC). Since then, she has had trouble sitting still. Hilde has worked as a volunteer in El Salvador, been editor of a political radio show for the University of Oslo’s student radio while obtaining her BA in political science, and traveled around the United States while obtaining her MA and PhD in Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. Hilde is also a Fulbright Alumna.

Hilde’s research interests cover American politics, U.S. foreign policy, American history and international relations. Her dissertation was on the concept of American exceptionalism understood as an identity, and its effect on history U.S. foreign policy traditions. This was further developed in her first book, American Exceptionalism: An Idea that Made a Nation and Remade the World. Before attaining her position as Associate Professor, she was Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). Hilde is often used as an analyst of American politics in Norwegian media, and in 2020 she developed and co-hosted a podcast miniseries in Norwegian on the historical development of American political institutions.

Hilde’s latest book is a Norwegian explainer of the American political system, called The American Paradox (Cappelen Damm, 2022). During the midterms’22, Hilde served as an expert commentator for both NRK and TV2. 

Every spring she conducts a study trip to Israel and Palestine with her students in the Peace and Conflict Studies program.

Read an interview with Hilde by the U.S. Embassy in Norway and watch her lecture on American exceptionalism held at the Nobel Institute in 2015.

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