Prof. Dr. Rafael Biermann

Research interests

• Intra-state conflicts, esp. ethnic and secessionist conflicts
• Conflict resolution, esp. crisis prevention, mediation, peacebuilding, humanitarian intervention and RtoP, peace ethics, patron-client relations in international relations
• International organizations and their interaction
• European security governance
• Regional focus on South Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and transatlantic relations

Curriculum Vitae

• 2020: Co-Director of the internationally recruited, English-language Master program “ International Organizations and Crisis Management ” ( IOCM ), Friedrich Schiller University ( FSU ) Jena ( with Prof. Dr. Christian Kreuder-Sonnen )
• 2016-2020: Initiation, preparation and accreditation of the IOCM programs
• 2011-2018: Director of the Master Double Degree Program „ German and European Studies ” between the Institute of Political Science in Jena and the National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Ukraine
• 2016-2018: Member of a Panel in the German Ministry of Foreign Policy for evaluating the structure and programs of the Ministry in crisis management and conflict prevention
• 2011-2013: Acting Director of the Institute of Political Science
• since 2010: Full Professor and Chair of International Relations at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
• 2006-2009: Visiting Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA ( School of International Graduate Studies, National Security Affairs Department )
• 2004: Venia legendi in Political Science from the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University Bonn, Germany, Habilitation ( Post-doc monograph ): Apprenticeship years in Kosovo. The failure of international crisis prevention before the outbreak of war
• 1995-1999: Head of Central Planning ( Speechwriter Section ) for the German Minister of Defense within the Policy Planning Staff
• 1997: PhD in Political Science ( major ), History and German Literature ( minors ) from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University Bonn, Germany, PhD thesis: Between Kremlin and Chancellery. How Moscow struggled with German unity
• 1990-1991: Desk Officer at the Chancellor of Dr. Helmut Kohl ( Policy Planning Staff )

A more detailed curriculum vitae can be downloaded as PDFpdf, 171 kb · de

Publications (Selection)

Monographs

• Lehrjahre im Kosovo. Das Scheitern der internationalen Krisenprävention vor Kriegsausbruch, Munich: SchöninghExternal link( History and Present Collection ) 2006.
• Zwischen Kreml und Kanzleramt. Wie Moskau mit der deutschen Einigung rang, Munich: Schöningh ( Studies on politics 30 ), 2. Ed., 1998. (Content & IntroductionExternal link, reviewpdf, 1 mb · de)
• Verification through cooperation. Problems and Perspectives of the Verification of Nuclear Arms Control Contracts ,, Bonn: German Society for Foreign Policy ( Working Papers on International Politics 57 ), March 1990. (contentpdf, 185 kb · de)
• The Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe – Potential, Problems and Perspectives, Bonn: Center for European Integration Research ( ZEI, Discussion Paper C 56 ), 1999. (downloadExternal link)

Editorship

• Patron-Client Relations in Secessionist Conflict, Guest Editor of a Special Issue in Territory, Politics, Governance, 13:1, 2025 (linkExternal link)
• Societies in transition. Reconciliation in the Balkans and the Caucasus ( coedited with Carolina Rehrmann and Phillip Tolliday ), Research in Peace and Reconciliation Series, Vol. 5, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2020. (linkExternal link)
• Balancing Legal Norms, Moral Values and National Interests, Guest Editor of a Roundtable in Ethics and International Affairs, 33: 1, 2019. (linkExternal link)
• Palgrave Handbook on Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics ( coedited with Joachim Koops ), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. (Link )External link
• Deutsche Konfliktbewältigung auf dem Balkan. Erfahrungen und Lehren aus dem Einsatz , Baden-Baden: Nomos 2002. (LinkExternal link, Contentpdf, 1 mb · de)

 Journal articles (selected)

• Patron-Client Relations in Secessionist Conflict: Introducing the Special Issue, Territory, Politics, Governance, 13:1, 2025, 1-8, https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2024.2410236External link.
• Conceptualizing Patron-Client Relations in Secessionist Conflict. A Research Agenda, Territory, Politics, Governance, 9-27, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2024.2318467External link..
• Secessionist Conflict – A Happy Marriage of Norms and Interests? Ethics and International Affairs, 33:1, 2019, 29-43. (DownloadExternal link)
• Raus aus dem Schatten – Stand und Perspektiven der Forschung zu De-facto-Staaten, Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, 6:2, 2018, 207-258 (with Sebastian Relitz). (LinkExternal link)
• Designing Cooperation among International Organizations: The Quest for Autonomy, the Dual-Consensus Rule, and Cooperation Failure, in: Journal of International Organization Studies 6(2) (Downloadpdf, 410 kb · de)
• Coercive Europeanization. The EU’s struggle to contain secessionism in the Balkans, in: European Security,  23:4, 2014, 484-508. (Downloadpdf, 405 kb · de)
• Legitimitätsprobleme humanitärer Intervention. Kontinuitätslinien zwischen Kosovo und Libyen (Challenges in Legitimizing Humanitarian Intervention. Continuities between Kosovo and Libya), Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, 3:1, 2014, 3-38. (DownloadExternal link)
• Der Deutsche Bundestag und die Auslandseinsätze der Bundeswehr. Zur Gratwanderung zwischen exekutiver Prärogative und legislativer Mitwirkung, in: Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 35:4, Dez. 2004, 607-626. (Downloadpdf, 1 mb · de)
• Back to the Roots. The European Community and the Dissolution of Yugoslavia – Policies under the Impact of Global Sea-Change in: Journal of European Integration History, 10:1, 2004, 29-50.

Contributions to edited volumes (selected)

• Zur Macht internationaler Organisationen, in: Ohnesorge, Hendrik W. (ed.), Macht und Machtasymmetrien. Schlüsselphänomene internationaler Politik – Festschrift für Xuewu Gu zum 65. Geburtstag, Berlin und Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2022, S. 79-126.
• Reconciliation in Former Yugoslavia. Assessing Progress across the Region, in: Rehrmann, Carolina / Biermann, Rafael / Tolliday, Phillip (eds.), Societies in Transition. Reconciliation in the Balkans and the Caucasus (Research in Peace and Reconciliation Series, Vol. 5), Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2020, 69-102.
• Die Epochenscheide 1989/90 – Aufbruch in eine neue europäische Friedensordnung? Ein skeptischer Rückblick, in: Braun, Karl-Heinz et al. (eds.), Historisches Jahrbuch, 139 (2019), Freiburg: Herder, 163-196.
• Studying Relations among International Organizations: History, Key Concepts and Theoretical Challenges, in: Biermann, Rafael and Koops, Joachim A. (eds.), Palgrave Handbook on Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 1-46 (with Joachim A. Koops).
• Resource Dependence Theory, in: Biermann, Rafael and Koops, Joachim A. (eds.), Palgrave Handbook on Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 135-156 (with Michael Harsch).
• The Role of Bureaucracies, in: Biermann, Rafael and Koops, Joachim A. (eds.), Palgrave Handbook on Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 243-70.
• Legitimacy in Inter-Organizational Relations, in: Biermann, Rafael and Koops, Joachim A. (eds.), Palgrave Handbook on Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 337-64.
• For the currently newest one, “NATO’s Troubled Relations …” Please add the year 2014.
• And change the last title, which is a strange translation, to: Die Bedeutung freundschaftlicher Verbundenheit in der Politik. Eine Annäherung am Beispiel des deutschen Einigungsprozesses, in: Gefühl und Kalkül. Der Einfluss von Emotionen auf die Politik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. By Birgit Aschmann.
• NATO’s Troubled Relations with Partner Organizations. A Resource Dependence Explanation, in Sebastian Mayer (Hg.), NATO’s Post-Cold War Politics and the Changing Provision of Security, London: Palgrave Macmillan (New Security Challenges Series), 215-233. (LinkExternal link)
• Der Kosovo Krieg als Beispiel humanitärer Intervention, in Norbert Frei and Anette Weinke (eds.), Toward a new Moral World Order? Menschenrechtspolitik und Völkerrecht seit 1945, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2013, pp. 219-231. (Downloadpdf, 778 kb · de)
• Secessionism, Irredentism and EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans – Squaring the Circle?, in: Arolda Elbasani (ed.), European Integration and Transformation in the Western Balkans: Europeanization or Business as Usual? London: Routledge (Contemporary European Studies Series) 2013, 157-169. (BookExternal link, Downloadpdf, 945 kb · de)
• Inter-Organizational Relations: An Emerging Research Program, in: Bob Reinalda (Hg.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Non-State Actors, London: Ashgate, 2011, 173-84. (BookExternal link)
• NATO’s Institutional Decline in Post-Cold War Security, in: Jan Hallenberg, James Sperling and Charlotte Wagnsson ( Hg. ), European Security Governance. The European Union in a Westphalian World, London: Routledge 2009, 40-60. (BookExternal link, downloadpdf, 2 mb · de)
• The importance of friendly solidarity in politics. An approximation using the example of the German unification process, in: feeling and calculation. The influence of emotions on the politics of the 19th and 20th. Century, ed. by Birgit Aschmann. Munich: Franz Steiner Verlag ( HMRG Booklets of the Ranke Society 62 ) 2005, 197-230. 

A list of all publications of Prof. Biermann can be found herepdf, 178 kb · de.

Teaching experiences

Since 1999, Prof. Biermann gave more than ninety Lecture Series’, BA and MA seminars and Early Career Workshops at

• Friedrich Wilhelms University Bonn (1999-2005)
• Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA (2006-2009) and
• Friedrich Schiller Jena University (since 2010)

A list with the topics of these classes can be found herepdf, 88 kb · de.

Conferences

You may find a selection of the papers and presentations Prof. Biermann gave since 2010 herepdf, 150 kb · de