// NEW INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION. In Spring '12 I will join the Cardiff School of European Studies as a Lecturer in International Relations.

// NEW PUBLICATION. Our critique of contemporary counter-piracy strategy and the need to apprehend piracy as a peacebuilding problem has been published as a Report of the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF), Duisburg (in German only). The Report co-authored with Jan Stockbruegger (U Leiden) and Sascha Werthes (U Duisburg) can be downloaded here.

// NEW PUBLICATION. The paper titled "Pirates, Fishermen and Peacebuilding: Options for a Counter-Piracy Strategy in Somalia" has been published by Contemporary Security Policy. The paper develops options for an alternative counter-piracy strategy and is co-authored with Jan Stockbruegger (U Leiden) and Sascha Werthes (U Duisburg)

// FORTHCOMING PIRACY WORKSHOP. On 30th of September I am organzing a one day workshop investigating the contributions different disciplines can make to the global fight against piracy. The workshop is hosted by the Greenwich Maritime Institute, and 15 participants from different disciplines and countries contribute. Further information is available here.

// FORTHCOMING PRESENTATION. In August (17-20, 2011) I will participate in the Conference of the World International Studies Comittee (WISC). I present two papers, one on the knowledge politics of the United Nations drawing on my recent research on piracy, and a paper on methodology discussing praxiography in international relations. Both papers will be available to download in mid August.

// NEW INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION. I have joined the Greenwich Maritime Institute as a Leverhulme visiting fellow to continue my research on contemporary maritime piracy. My new contact details can be found here.

// NEW PUBLICATION. In the Publications Section you can now download a paper forthcoming with Contemporary Security Policy (32:2). The paper titled "Pirates, Fishermen and Peacebuilding: Options for a Sustainable Counter-Piracy Strategy in Somalia" develops options for an alternative counter-piracy strategy and is co-authored with Jan Stockbruegger (U Leiden) and Sascha Werthes (U Duisburg)

// A forthcoming paper titled "The Clash of Practice: Political Controversy and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission" is available in the Working Papers Section. The draft is forthcoming in the Special Issue ‘Knowledge and practice’ edited by Richard Freeman, Steven Griggs and Annette Boaz of the Journal Evidence and Policy.

// Two new papers and one revised paper are available in the Working Papers Section. The paper "Practical Reflexivity, Dilemmas and Coping Strategies" is coauthored with Trine Villumsen (CAST, Copenhagen). It discusses different proposals for positioning the academic towards society and is part of a forthcoming forum. The second paper titled "The Formalization of Informality", is a German language paper co-authored with Frank Gadinger (NRW School of Governance, Duisburg). It provides a critical reflection of the terms 'informal politics'and 'informal governing' and their relation to theories of practice. The third, revised paper is a second version of the paper titled "Security Expertise after Securitization", the paper introduces the notion of 'practical reflexivity' in the light of the work of Gramsci, Bourdieu, Dewey and Rorty. Any comments on this work in progress is highly welcome!

// In March '10 I will participate in the ISA's Annual Conference in Montreal, Canada and presented two papers. One paper scrutinizing the relation between IR and international bureucracies by discussing the case of 'communities of practice', the second paper deals with the question of how the future of counter-piracy governance will look like in developing three scenarios. The papers are available for download in the Working Papers Section..

// From September 18th to October 2nd I will be on field research to Kenya as part of my current research project on contemporary piracy. The research trip notably concerns issues of the coordination of the international community and representations of piracy. More information is available on the project's blog.

// In November '10 I will participate in the HCRI Conference on Conflict, Intervention and the Politics of Knowledge in Manchester, UK. My paper presentation will adress the question of the role of peace researcher's at the United Nations headquarter. More information is available on the workshop website. The paper will be available for download soon.

// A New Paper is available at the Working Papers Section. The paper "Security as Performation. Securitization, Piracy and the United Nations Security Council", which I presented at the SGIR Conference, adresses the question of how piracy was turned into an issue of the UN Security Council. It uses Actor-Network Theory and Securitization Theory to adress this issue. Any comments on this work in progress product is highly welcome!

// In September '10 I am organizing together with Elena Hesselmann a workshop titled "Rediscovering Global Bureaucracies - From Weber to Where?". The workshop is organized in the frame of the Young Researchers Workshops of the Standing Group of International Relations and discusses research in progress on the role of administrations in global politics from various disciplinary angles. More information is available on the workshop website.

// New Research Project launched. Since March '10 I am one of the project leaders of the Contemporary Piracy Studies Group. The Research Group investigates various aspects of contemporary piracy with special emphasis on the situation in Somalia. My own contribution focuses on the global governance arrangements for containing piracy and the epistemic practices that constitute it. More information can be found on the weblog of the research group at piracy-studies.org.

// In May '10 I attended the 1st Berlin Forum on Innovation in Governance. The forum explored the relations between science and technology studies and governance research and discusses whether and how political technologies (e.g. deliberative policy designs) can be understood by the same means as other technologies. My own contribution to the forum was a presentation on the case of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) foregrounding how new political technologies entered the mandate of the PBC and why these technologies did not work in practice. I drew on a theoretical frame inspired by Actor-Network Theory which highlights processes of translation and fashion.

// In February '10 I will participate in the 51st Annual Conference of the International Studies Association (ISA) in New Orleans (USA). I present three papers. The first paper is a further developed of my paper on the UN Peacebuilding Commission. The second paper co-authored with Trine Villumsen (CAST, DK) introduces the notion of practical reflexivity to security studies and argues that we can cope with issues of the situatedness of the security professor in drawing on ideal types from social theory. The third further, co-authored with Felix Bethke (INEF) uses actor-network theory to study the circulation of the concept of failed states. all three papers are available upon request.

// from 2.-6. of September '09 I attended the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in Toronto and present papers in two panels: A panel on the Security Development Nexus in which I present a paper on coordination. A panel on Expertise and Public Policy, in which I present some results of my research on the role of experts at the UN.

// In June '09 I attended the 4th International Conference in Interpretative Policy Analysis in Kassel and presented in a panel on practice theories jointly organized with Hendrik Wagenaar my paper on the practices of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. The conference proofed to be a very stimulating environment for debating theoretical issues in various branches of policy analysis (including development studies and international relations.)