Thomas Risse

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Thomas Risse (formerly Risse-Kappen ) (born December 17, 1955 in Mettmann ) is a German political scientist specializing in international relations and professor of theory and empirical research in international politics at the Otto Suhr Institute of the Free University of Berlin .

Life

Risse studied political science, sociology and Catholic theology at the University of Bonn from 1976 to 1980 with a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation . There he completed his studies with a master's degree in political science. This was followed by another year of study at the Institut d'études politiques in Paris . Risse then worked as a research assistant at the Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research. In 1987 he completed his doctorate at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main ; the title of the dissertation supervised by Ernst-Otto Czempiel is "The Crisis of Security Policy". Risse then went to the USA : from 1988 to 1990 he was a lecturer at Cornell University in Ithaca and was a visiting professor at Yale University in New Haven the following year . This was followed by positions at the University of Wyoming , the University of Konstanz and Stanford University . From 1997 he taught for four years at the Robert Schumann Center for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute in Florence , where, among other things, he gave seminars on the theory of international relations. Since 2001 Risse has held the chair for Theory and Empirical International Politics at the Otto Suhr Institute of the Free University of Berlin and head of the “Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy” department there. Between 2003 and 2005 he was also Dean of the Department of Politics and Social Sciences (since 2005 Dean of Research). Since early 2006 he is speaker of the DFG - Collaborative Research Center Governance in areas of limited statehood: New forms of governance? . For his work on the project Global Governance, Troubled Societies, and the Future of the International System , he received the Max Planck Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Max Planck Society, endowed with 125,000 euros . In 2007 Risse turned down a professorship at the London School of Economics and Political Science . Thomas Risse worked from 2006 to 2007 as part of a research stay at the Center for European Studies as well as a visiting professor at Harvard University . Risse has been a member of the Foundation Board of Stiftung Zukunft Berlin since 2006 . In 2008 he was visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . In 2011 he turned down the offer to take over the presidency of the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies .

Thomas Risse is married to Tanja Börzel .

Research priorities

Throughout his entire academic career, Thomas Risse has been concerned with international relations and foreign policy . When he began his research in the early 1980s, his focus was on international security policy .

His book The Crisis of Security Policy , which was also his dissertation , deals with the social conflicts between 1977 and 1984.
Risse's research showed that social consensus and the need for foreign policy adjustments initially largely coincide with regard to security policy goals. A new peace movement then developed in the early 1980s , which called the old goals of deterrence, defense and military balance into question. Risse poses two questions in the room that are important for the security policy debate. “Will security policy continue to be a central political issue?” Which, in his opinion, depends on whether and how the peace movement continues to develop, and “the extent of polarization in the controversy over security policy issues is directly related to whether there is a chance to convert and realize the corresponding requirements in the international environment? ”In his opinion, this second thesis is confirmed by the positive political development in the Soviet Union since 1985, among other things . His final thesis is that the "support for a foreign policy of the FRG oriented towards reducing violence has stabilized considerably."

His book Null -lösung also deals with international security policy and deals with the decision-making processes for medium-range weapons between 1970 and 1987.
The stationing of medium-range weapons in the Federal Republic of Germany has moved the public for years. For years, the Soviet Union and the USA faced each other with rigid negotiating positions. It wasn't until 1986 that the fronts began to move. The study in this book analyzes the history of the double solution. The signing of the American-Soviet Treaty on the Worldwide Disarmament of Ground-Based Medium-Range Missiles ( INF Treaty ) on December 8, 1987 then ended a chapter of East-West security policy. The role of Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF), i.e. nuclear medium-range systems, in European East-West relations is illustrated by the example of the relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet Union. In addition, INF was a pervasive theme of the transatlantic relationship between the US and Western Europe within NATO . The study examines INF on two levels: On the one hand, the development processes within NATO are analyzed. On the other hand, the bilateral interactions between the USA and its allies are examined using the example of the German-American relationship, since the Federal Republic of Germany as the main stationing country for retrofitting has played a prominent role from the start.

After the end of the East-West conflict , Thomas Risse focused on human rights and transatlantic relations.

One of his most important works is the book The Power of Human Rights , which he wrote with Anja Jetschke and Hans Peter Schmitz. This deals with international norms, communicative action and political change in the countries of the south. The book is divided into six chapters. The first chapter contains the introduction and an overview. The aim of the book is to explain the differences in the enforcement of human rights norms in the Third World and to answer the question to what extent the results from the human rights area allow general statements about the effect of international norms on domestic political processes. For this purpose, the book presents a spiral model of human rights change that is to be applied to human rights development in six selected countries. The spiral model describes a socialization process which - if it is successful - leads to the implementation of international human rights norms in the sense of permanent rule compliance in the relevant state. The enforcement of international human rights norms depends on whether transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and social groups within the affected states succeed in putting autocratic systems under pressure. The results in this book are based on the systematic investigation of human rights developments in countries from almost all regions of the world. The domestic political change in the sense of a permanently improved human rights practice will be examined more closely. Countries were chosen in which, on the one hand, human rights were systematically and massively violated, and on the other hand, countries in which the situation has improved over time. There are two important points in examining this model presented in this book. On the one hand, it systematically integrates transnational and international actors into the explanation of political change and, on the other hand, it questions theories of modernization or dependency theory, in that the development of human rights and democracy is not simply viewed as a quasi-automatic consequence of economic development. In the second chapter, the theoretical framework of the investigation is presented first. It discusses the status of social science research, the internal political effects of international norms, communicative action in international relations and processes of liberalization and democratization. The third chapter deals with case studies from the Philippines and Indonesia . Above all, the question is clarified here why it took more than ten years longer in Indonesia than in the Philippines to change power and gradually introduce the rule of law . In the fourth chapter the countries Uganda and Kenya follow . The transnational mobilization is discussed here. Chapter five examines human rights developments in Morocco and Tunisia . The question, "Why the development of human rights in the Republic of Tunisia has been stagnating for years, whereas in the Moroccan monarchy there is a clear improvement" is raised here. The final chapter briefly summarizes all the results of the study and concludes with practical conclusions for the human rights policy of the western industrialized countries , international organizations and non-governmental organizations .

Thomas Risse is the spokesman for the Collaborative Research Center 700: "Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood: New Forms of Governance?" .

Fonts

  • Human Rights - Global Dimensions of a Universal Claim. (ed., with Nicole Janz) Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag 2007.
  • Identities in Europe and the Institutions of the European Union. (with Richard Herrmann and Marilynn Brewer) Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2004.
  • The power of human rights. International norms, communicative action and political change in the countries of the south. (with Anja Jetschke and Hans Peter Schmitz) World Policy in the 21st Century, Vol. 7, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2002.
  • Handbook of International Relations. (with Walter Carlsnaes and Beth Simmons et al.) London: Sage, 2002.
  • Transforming Europe: Europeanization and Domestic Change. (with Maria Green Cowles) Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press 2001.
  • Globalization and the ability of the nation state to act. (with Edgar Grande) Journal of International Relations, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2000.
  • The Power of Human Rights. International Norms and Domestic Change. (with Stephen Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink) Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  • Exploring the Nature of the Beast: International Relations Theory and Comparative Policy Analysis Meet the European Union. Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1, 1996.
  • Cooperation Among Democracies: The European Influence on US Foreign Policy. (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics) Princeton University Press 1995.
  • Bringing Transnational Relations Back In. Non-State Actors, Domestic Structures and International Institutions. Cambridge Studies in International Relations. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
  • International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War. (with Richard N. Lebow) New York: Columbia University Press 1995.
  • Democracy and Peace. (with Nils Petter Gleditsch) European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1995.
  • The security policy crisis. Reorientation and decision-making processes in the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany 1977-1984. Mainz, Munich: Grünewald-Kaiser 1988.
  • Zero solution. Decision-making processes for medium-range weapons 1970 - 1987. Frankfurt / Main: Campus 1988.
  • A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and Public Spheres. Cornell UP, Ithaca, NY 2010.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Risse, Thomas . In: Personal Lexicon for International Relations Virtual (PIBv), edited by Ulrich Menzel , Institute for Social Sciences, TU Braunschweig .
personal data
SURNAME Cracks, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cracked Caps, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH 17th December 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Mettmann