Michael Zürn - Biography#

Michael Zürn is Director at the WZB (Berlin Social Science Center) and Professor for International Relations at the Free University of Berlin. He was founding Dean of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin (2004 – 2009) and is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science. Prior to this engagement he was Professor of International Relations for ten years at the University of Bremen where he led the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (INIIS) and the Collaborative Research Center “Transformations of the State”.

He serves or served on a number of scientific and editorial boards as well as in leading positions of civil society organizations such as the executive Board of Directors of the Development and Peace Foundation and the Presidium of the German Protestant Church Congress. He was member of the Senate of the German Research Association (2004-2010), he is chairman or member of advisory boards of the Excellence Cluster "Normative Orders", the Käte Homburger Kolleg "Cooperation and Governance", the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), or the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (IBEI). He serves or served in the editorial board among else of 'International Organizations', 'Global Policy', 'Global Governance', 'European Journal for Political Research', 'Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen', or 'Leviathan'.

Michael Zürn’s research focuses on international institutions and organizations, and their repercussions for the foundations of political order. He is concerned especially with questions of the emergence of international regimes, as well as with issues related to the effectiveness of those regimes and compliance with the regulatory systems which they establish. Early on he took up the theme and conceptualized the notion of the legitimacy of international institutions by placing this analysis in the broader context of the establishment of international orders and the impacts of international institutions on the nation state. He has engaged in various cooperative projects (in part with legal scholars) to deal with matters related to the legalization and constitutionality of international institutions.

He has published in journals like International Organization, World Politics, European Journal of International Relations and International Studies Quarterly, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Leviathan etc. and with publishers like Cambridge UP and Suhrkamp.