Research Profile

Currently, our research focuses on international organizations and international public administrations.

Andrea Liese’s project “’Talk and Action’: How International Organizations Respond to Areas of Limited Statehood” is guided by the following research questions: How do international organizations conceptualize “statehood” and “governance” in areas of limited statehood? Which factors (e.g. experiences made “on the ground”) explain these conceptualizations? The sub-project contributes to the Collaborative Research Center “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”, which receives funding from the German Research Foundation.

The project “Consideration of Expert Knowledge - International Public Administrations as Policy Experts” seeks answers to two research questions. 1. To what extent and under what conditions do states take into account expert knowledge and policy advice of international public administrations as a premise for further decisions and actions? 2. To what extent and why does the consideration of expert knowledge and policy advice of international public administrations by states vary across different international public administrations?. It is part of the Research Unit "International Public Administrations. The Emergence and Development of Administrative Patterns and their Effects on International Policy-Making", which receives funding from the German Research Foundation.

Andrea Liese’s past research has covered the following topics:

• Governance in areas of limited statehood
• Conditions for the success of transnational partnerships
• Participation of non-state actors in international governance
• Opening of international organizations towards non-state actors
• Effect of international regimes on domestic human rights policy
• Learning in international organizations
• Legalization in international human rights policy

Per-Olof Busch’s past research has dealt with:

• International governance
• Role and effects of international institutions, international organizations and international public administrations in international environmental policy
• Role and potential of diffusion and policy transfer as governance modes in international politics
• International causes of policy convergence and national policy change in environmental and social policy
• Effects of political and economic globalization on national and international policymaking in the environmental and social policy
• National and international policy analysis (especially policy change)
• Pioneering behavior of states in environmental policy