Professors

Prof. Dr. Aurel Croissant

After receiving an M.A. in Political Science from Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz, in 1996, Aurel Croissant started his career as Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Universities of Mainz and Heidelberg. In 2001, he received a doctoral degree (Dr. phil) in Political Science from Mainz University and was promoted to a non-tenured position as ‘Wissenschaftlicher Assistent’ (C1) at the Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg. In 2004, he accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor for Comparative Politics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. Since 2006, he has been Professor of Political Science (W3) at Heidelberg University. He is co-editor of the journal Democratization, associate editor of Asian Journal of Political Science, and editor of the book series Democratization Special Issues Series (Taylor and Francis), Politik in Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika (Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America, VS Verlag), and Weltregionen im Wandel (World Regions in Transition, Nomos). He is a referee for numerous German and international journals, publishers, and academic funding institutions, and sits on the Academic Advisory Boards of the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) and the Bertelsmann Transformation-Index (BTI).

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Harnisch

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Sebastian Harnisch, born in 1967, is Professor for International Relations and Foreign Policy at IPW since the summer term 2007. He studied Political Science and History in Trier and Washington, D.C. From 1993 to 2003, he served as a research associate and assistant at Trier University, where he also obtained his doctorate in 1998 and was appointed to Junior Professor for International Relations and Foreign Policy in 2003. After his habilitation in 2004, he took up a Deputy Professorship at the Universität der Bundeswehr München in 2006. He has been a research fellow at Columbia University in New York, Yonsei University in Seoul, and the Japan Center for International Exchange in Tokyo. He was also a Lecturer at Beijing Foreign Studies University (2012) and Al-Farabi National Kazakh University, Almaty (2013).

Sebastian Harnisch is Deputy Executive Director of the Heidelberg Center for the Environment (HCE), a member of the Board of Directors of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), and spokesperson for the “Foreign and Security Policy” group within the German Association for Political Science (DVPW). In addition, he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Foreign Policy Analysis journal as well as co­editor of the series Foreign Policy and International Order (Nomos Verl.) and Oxford Research Encyclopedia for Foreign Policy Analysis (in preparation).

Prof. Dr. Michael Haus

Born in 1970, Michael Haus has been Professor for Modern Political Theory at IPW since 2012. He studied political science, sociology, and philosophy in Frankfurt and Heidelberg and completed his PhD in 1999. From 1998 to 2009 he was a researcher and assistant professor at Heidelberg University of Education and the Technische Universität Darmstadt. He held interim professorships at Heidelberg University of Education, Lüneburg University, and Heidelberg University. He also was guest researcher at Gothenburg University. In 2009, Michael Haus was appointed to Professor for Political Theory at Kassel University.

His research interests are contemporary normative political theory, governance and state theory, urban politics, and interpretative policy analysis.  He is member of the editorial board for the journal Politische Viertelsjahresschrift (PVS).

Prof. Dr. Jale Tosun

Jale Tosun is a professor of Political Science at the Institute of Political Science. After studying political and administrative science in Konstanz and Pavia, she completed her PhD at the University of Konstanz on the topic of transformative change of environmental policy in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Jale Tosun was a Research Fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research before coming to Heidelberg in October 2013 as an assistant professor of International and Comparative Political Economy. She has been a professor of Political Science since March 2015. Her teaching and research focuses mainly on the comparative study of regulation in areas of environment, energy, and climate change, as well as on distributive conflicts within the European Union and the influence of the EU on regulatory measures in third-party states. Jale Tosun is a co-editor of the journals Policy Sciences and Zeitschrift für Umweltpolitik & Umweltrecht and leads a working group within the COST-Action INOGOV. She is an active member of the Heidelberg Center for the Environment She is an External Fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research.

Prof. Dr. Reimut Zohlnhöfer

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Reimut Zohlnhöfer (born in 1972) has been a Professor of Political Science at Heidelberg’s Institute of Political Science since 2011. He studied Political Science, Economics, and German Studies at Heidelberg University. From 1998 to 2000 he worked as a Research Associate (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) at the Center for Social Policy Research, University of Bremen, and received his PhD from the University of Bremen in 2001. Between 2001 and 2007, Prof. Zohlnhöfer was Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Science at Heidelberg University. During the academic year 2004-05 he was a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Reimut Zohlnhöfer received his post-doctoral lecture qualification (Habilitation) at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at Heidelberg University in 2008 and accepted a professorship of Comparative Public Policy at the University of Bamberg in the same year before returning to Heidelberg in 2011. Professor Zohlnhöfer is a member in various advisory boards of academic journals and research projects and liaison professor (Vertrauensdozent) for the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes). Furthermore, he was Spokesperson of the Standing Group (Sektion) on Political Economy of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) between 2009 and 2015.

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Endre Borbáth

Endre Borbáth, born in 1991, is a junior professor of Empirical-Analytical Participation Research at the IPW. He studied Political Science at the Central European University (Budapest), and Political Science and Philosophy at the Babeș-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca). He later completed his doctorate at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at European University Institute in Florence. Subsequently, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Freie Universität Berlin and at the Center for Civil Society Research of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. His main research and teaching interests include political participation, party competition, social movements, civil society, cleavages, comparative politics, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and quantitative research methods.

Prof. Dr. Frank R. Pfetsch

Prof. Dr. Frank R. Pfetsch was born in 1936 and completed his studies in Economics and Political Science among others at Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris, Harvard University, Cambridge/Mass., Free University Berlin, Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg. His doctorate and Habilitation were both completed at  Heidelberg University. He has been active in various research institutions and in the former Federal Ministry for Scientific Research in Bonn. Professor Pfetsch was an adviser for UNESCO in the field of Science Policy and Research planning. Since 1976 has been Professor of Political Science at the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg and has held guest professorships at the University of Pittsburgh, Kyung Hee University Seoul, Universidade Brasilia, and the University of Leipzig. He furthermore held the Chaire Elie Halevy and Chaire Alfred Grosser at the Institut d`Etudes Politiques de Paris (1995) and Lille (2004) and a Jean-Monnet Chaire ad personam since 1999. He founded the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research (HIIK). Professor Pfetsch is a member of the Board of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Science, "International Sociological Association" (1974-1980), Member of the Executive Committee of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) (1997-2003); Member of the Advisory Board of the “Sino-European Institutes” in Shanghai; Advisory Board Member of the “Centre for Study of Democracy” of the University of Westminster; and Member of “Cycladic Academy for Europe”, Tinos/Greece.

Prof. Dr. Peter Schlotter

Peter Schlotter, born in 1945 in Frankfurt am Main, has been Senior Academic Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science since 2005. He studied History, Political Science, and German Literature at the universities of Frankfurt, München und Heidelberg and received his doctorate at the University of Frankfurt in 1975. From 1974 until 2005 Prof. Schlotter was Research Fellow at the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt (PRIF) and was a member of the Board of Directors and head of research groups on numerous occasional. During the 2+4 negotiations concerning the reunification of Germany in 1990, he served as consultant to the then Foreign Minister of the German Democratic Republic, Markus Meckel. In 1997 he completed his HdhdosHabilitation at the Technical University Darmstadt und was appointed to an extraordinary professorship. Prof. Schlotter taught as a temporary professor at the universities of Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, und Innsbruck and was chairman of the German Society for Peace and Conflict Research from 2002 until 2008.

Prof. Schlotter has been an emeritus professor since 2010. He continues to teach at the institute.

Prof. Dr. Manfred G. Schmidt

Manfred G. Schmidt was born in 1948. He studied Political Science and English Literature and Languages at Heidelberg University from 1969 to 1974. He received his doctorate in Political Science at the University Tubingen in 1975 and his Habilitation in the Faculty of Public Administration at the University at Konstanz in 1981.

Manfred G. Schmidt held the position of Wissenschaftlicher Assistant at the University of Tuebingen and the University of Konstanz from 1975 to 1983. He served as Professor of Political Science at the Free University in Berlin from 1984 to 1987, at Heidelberg University from 1987 to 1997, and at the Centre for Social Policy (University of Bremen) from 1997 to 2001. Since 2001 has been a Professor of Political Science Heidelberg University.

Manfred G. Schmidt has been awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for International Comparative Social Research in 1982 for his Habilitationsschrift “Wohlfahrtsstaatliche Politik unter bürgerlichen und sozialdemokratischen Regierungen – Ein internationaler Vergleich” and the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation in 1995 for his comparative studies on public policy in western democracies.

Schmidt is the author of 18 monographs, 14 edited or co-edited collaborative volumes, and numerous articles in journals and collaborative volumes. The main topics of his research and teaching activities are politics and policy in the Federal Republic of Germany, theories of democracy, and comparative studies on the welfare state.

Prof. Dr. Klaus von Beyme

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apl. Prof. Dr. Axel Murswieck

Prof. Dr. Dieter Nohlen