Andreas Wimmer

Andreas Wimmer is a Swiss sociologist who is the Lieber Professor of Sociology and Political Philosophy at Columbia University. He has a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Zurich.

He is known for his research on nationalism, nation building, and ethnic conflict. He is credited with having "notably revitalized the macropolitical study of nationalism."

Wimmer's research into the processes and conditions affecting the development of nation-states suggest that different conditions may have led to the development of nation-states at different times. In Great Britain, France, and the United States, Wimmer argues that elites and masses slowly grew to identify with each other as states were established in which more people were able to participate politically and receive public goods in exchange for taxes. Conditions affecting recent, geographically diverse, postcolonial states may not be comparable.