Thomas König (political scientist)

Thomas König (born February 2, 1961 in Münster ) is a German political scientist . His research focuses on the application of theories of political decision-making and negotiation, in particular game-theoretical models of strategic decision-making. He applies these theories mainly to the explanation of political reforms. König currently heads the Collaborative Research Center 884 of the German Research Foundation “Political Economy of Reforms” and the summer school “Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models Europe” (EITM).

Life

After studying political science and Romance studies at the Universities of Heidelberg and Mannheim , Thomas König was a research assistant at the research center for social developments, which was headed by Rudolf Wildenmann . From 1988 to 1990 he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Kiel with Franz Urban Pappi in the international research project "Political field of work in the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America: A comparison of political decision-making processes".

In 1990 Thomas König received his doctorate with the dissertation “Organized Influences on Legislation in the Political Field of Work” in Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim. From 1990 to 1992 he was a research assistant at the Chair of Political Science I at the University of Mannheim under Franz Urban Pappi, and from 1992 to 1997 university assistant at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim.

In 1996 and 1997 he was an assistant professor at the Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) with Frans Stokman . In 1997, Thomas König received his habilitation in political science at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim with the thesis "Coordination, Cooperation and Preservation of State Freedom of Action" .

From 1997 to 1999 he was a substitute professor at the Institute for Political Science at Saarland University ; from 1997 to 1999 he was a DFG Heisenberg fellow at Stanford University (USA) with Bruce Bueno de Mesquita ; From 1999 to 2003 he was Professor of Political Science at the University of Konstanz and from 2002 to 2003 Fulbright Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. From October 2003 to mid-2007, König was Professor of Political Science at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer , and since September 2007 at the University of Mannheim .

research

König established himself at a national and international level with his work on negotiation and decision-making research at an early stage. In the early work, the focus was on the combination of network and institutional analysis. This was followed by studies on the spatial positioning of actors in international and European negotiations, which are linked to approaches for setting strategic agendas and exercising veto power and empirically verified. This connection between theory and empiricism is a characteristic of his work, which increasingly focuses on the feasibility of reforms. In the field of comparative political and European research, in particular, there are numerous works in leading specialist journals and publishers. A special feature of this work is the connection of insights from various disciplines such as economics, sociology and statistics with relevant questions and topics of political science.

Awards and honors

For his work, König has received numerous prizes and awards such as the Karl W. Deutsch Honorary Professorship from the Berlin Science Center (1997), the appointment as Visiting Professor at the University of Rome (2000), the Harrison Prize in British Political Science (2001), and the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at Washington University in St. Louis (2002), the nomination for the Descartes Research Award of the European Union (2006), the W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellowship at Stanford University (2009). In 2017 Thomas König was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Publications (selection)

• König, Thomas and Lars Mäder: "Non-Conformable, Partial and Conformable Transposition: A Competing Risk Analysis of the Transposition Process of Directives in the EU15." European Union Politics: 14 (1): 46-69, 2013.

• Finke, Daniel, Thomas König, Sven-Oliver Proksch, and George Tsebelis: "Reforming the European Union: Realizing the Impossible". Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.

• König, Thomas / Luetgert, Brooke: "Troubles with Transposition? Explaining Trends in Member-State Notification and the Delayed Transposition of EU Directives." British Journal of Political Science 39 (1), 163-194, 2009.

• König, Thomas / Lindberg, Björn / Lechner, Sandra / Pohlmeier, Winfried: "Bicameral Conflict Resolution in the European Union: An Empirical Analysis of Conciliation Committee Bargains." British Journal of Political Science 37 (2), 281-312, 2007.

• Hug, Simon / König, Thomas: "In View of Ratification: Governmental Preferences and Domestic Constraints at the Amsterdam Intergovernmental Conference." International Organization 56 (2), 447-476, 2002.

Web links

• Page from Thomas König at the University of Mannheim
• Member entry by Prof. Dr. Thomas König at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on December 12, 2017.