International Organizations and International Law

Mission Statement

In the course of the 21st century, our understanding of statehood has changed dramatically with the emergence of several new dynamics. Interactions between state entities have created a new demand for complex processes and institutions. A central concern of our section is therefore to identify the causes of international, transnational and domestic transformations in order to observe current processes of change and the associated risks or opportunities in state formations and, if necessary, to see these in the context of external factors.

Our focus is on the dynamics that determine access to power and its legitimisation in democracies and autocracies. When analysing such "transformations" of systems of rule, international influences (such as actors or organisations) must also be taken into account, as these have a variety of effects on state power constellations in different regions of the world due to the highly dynamic structure of international competition and international cooperation patterns.

The section is open to social and political science perspectives; legal and economic issues also enrich our research. Under the conceptual umbrella of transformation research, transition processes can proceed in the direction of both democratic and autocratic regime development. Such processes have recently been observed worldwide and can be observed in many different ways and to varying degrees. The following exemplary perspectives are conceivable for research approaches in the section: Institutions, International Institutions, Comparative Politics, Civil Society Studies.  

The Section "Statehood and International Transformations" endeavours to cooperate closely with the Section "Norms and Change in World Politics".

Current and Upcoming Events

Current research projects

• "The boundaries of EU's resilience policy vis-à-vis the domestic actors in Eastern neighborhood: case study of oligarchy in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine" (Denis Cenusa)
• "Labor policies in the post-Soviet space - a comparison of Georgia and Moldova" (Annemarie Ickler)
• "Resource Dependent Joint Programs: The European Union and Council of Europe in the Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans" (Fabian Schoeppner)
• "The Conceptual Limits of the Concept of Competition in the Context of International Relations: Definitions of Terms" (Fadi Bezkadi)
• "Civil Society within Authoritarian Regimes: Cases of Russia and Turkey" (Murad Nasibov)
• "Civil society under authoritarian rule" (Simon Rothers)
• "Cultural Cooperation in a Globalized World: The European Union and Mexico - studying EU Cultural Foreign Policy in Latin America" (Edith Ruvalcaba Galindo)
• "Non-democratic regionalism in International Relations: About the transformative impact of an emergent global actor" (Finn Freund)