Institute of Political Science

Natalie Pawlowski, Ph.D.

Natalie Pawlowski was a research associate at the Department of International Relations/Peace and Conflict Studies from October 2016 to September 2023. In her dissertation, which she successfully defended in July 2023, she dealt with counter-terrorism measures in major European cities. Her research focused on security studies, terrorism research and counter-terrorism, cities in international relations as well as post-structuralist and sociological approaches. She taught various seminars, such as Methods of Peace and Conflict Studies, Key concepts in International Relations and The Security-Migration-Development Nexus. In 2018, she received the Teaching Award of the University of Tübingen, in 2019 the State Teaching Award of the State of Baden-Württemberg (2019) in the category 'University Teaching' awarded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg.

Barbara Gruber, M.A.

Barbara Gruber was a Teach@Tuebingen Fellow for Political Science and International Relations from October to December 2022. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the emergence and implementation of psychological resilience as a form of therapeutic governance in the prevention of radicalisation. Barbara interviewed 40 practitioners in the Netherlands and Germany to address the controversial question of whether radicalisation prevention is a security concern or a social and therapeutic concern. In this context, her main research interest is directed towards investigating the authority of psychological knowledge in shaping global security practices. Since December 2022, Barbara is a Research Associate in the Research Cluster "Counter-Terrorism, CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) and Intelligence" at Danube University Krems, Austria.

Sarah Clowry, Ph.D.

Sarah Clowry was a Teach@Tübingen Fellow at the Chair of Peace Research and International Relations from April to October 2022, where she convened a module on 'Peacemaking in the Middle East and North Africa' and conducted a research study exploring the relationship between mediation and transitional justice. She previously completed her PhD on identity construction through peace mediation in Syria and Yemen at the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. Her PhD was funded by a UK Economic and Social Research Council studentship. She has several years of experience working in international development in Palestine and the UK and, following the submission of her doctoral thesis, has been employed as Head of Research at an international peacebuilding organisation and as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant. Sarah’s work has been published in Nations and Nationalism, Peacebuilding and the Journal of the British-Yemeni Society.

Aidan Gnoth, Ph.D.

Aidan Gnoth was a Teach@Tübingen Fellow in Political Science and International Relations until October 2022, where he taught seminars on 'The Politics of Violence and the Promise of Pacifism' and 'Peacebuilding in South East Asia'. In this context, he was particularly interested in innovating research methods to explore revolutionary nonviolence, alternative politics and notions of peace, and the role of academia as a critic and conscience of society. He worked for several years as a policy advisor and relief coordinator in New Zealand before completing his PhD at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago (New Zealand). His doctoral thesis analysed how critical peace scholars have challenged the discourse of international peacebuilding. Since graduating in 2020, he has joined several research groups working on pacifism and nonviolence, peacebuilding on the Korean Peninsula, and the transmission of humanitarian knowledge to indigenous practitioners. He has worked as a post-doctoral research associate and teaching fellow at the University of Otago and, as a REI Foundation Scholar, is involved in a number of projects aimed at empowering local researchers and organisations in Cambodia.

 

Yuliia Kurnyshova, Ph.D.

Yuliia Kurnyshova was a Ukrainian visiting scholar in the Research@Tübingen programme at the Chair of International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies from April to the end of June 2022. She graduated from Kyiv's Taras Shevchenko National University, where she obtained a Master's Diploma in History and Journalism. In 2004, she defended her theoretical thesis on U.S. Foreign Policy during the Berlin Crisis 1958-1963. Kurnyshova has worked for the National Institute for Strategic Studies (Kyiv) and the Institute for Social and Economic Research as a foreign policy analyst. Her most recent affiliation was with the Institute of International Relations (Kyiv). In addition to her research work, she has been involved in various international and national activities directed at implementing reforms in Ukraine. With the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, she was forced to flee Ukraine to Germany via Poland. In July, she took up a position at the University of Bremen as part of a project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Dr. Christine Andrä

Christine Andrä was a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University (UK), and a Research Associate at the Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen. In February 2019, she successfully defended her dissertation entitled "A Genealogy of the Problem of War in International Politics" at Aberystwyth University. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Rhetoric from the University of Tübingen, an M.A. in International Studies/Peace and Conflict Research from the University of Frankfurt, and an M.Res. in Political and Social Research from the European University Institute in Florence. She was a Faculty Fellow at the School of International Service, American University in Washington, DC (2016/17) and a Teaching and Research Fellow at the Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen (2018/19). She also has experience in applied peace research, gained while working for the Bonn International Center for Conversion (2011/12). She is now a research associate at the Chair of Political Science with a focus on international politics at the Technical University of Dresden.

Dr. Bettina Ahrens

Bettina Ahrens was from 2012 until 2019 employed as a research assistant in the International Relations / Peace and Conflict Research cluster. Her research interests included structural change in IR, solidarity in international society, global governance, normative theories of IR, European foreign policy, international diplomacy, and the English School. In July 2018 she completed her dissertation with the title "AmbigEUity - The EU and the Solidarisation of International Society". At the ISA in San Francisco in April 2018, her paper entitled "The EU and Ambiguity as a Mechanism of Change" received the Outstanding Graduate Student Research Paper Award from the English School Section of the ISA. She was also part of the Tübingen team in the EU research project GLOBUS, which focuses on the EU's contribution to global justice. In December 2019 Bettina Ahrens moved to a position at the University of Stuttgart.

Dr. Thomas Nielebock, Senior Lecturer a.D.

Thomas Nielebock was a lecturer and researcher at the Institute for Political Science in the research cluster of International Relations / Peace and Conflict Research from 1981 to 2019. From 1993 he held the position of a senior lecturer. His work focused on European security and European security institutions, arms control, in particular arms exports and nuclear weapon free zones, conflict analysis, conflict management and mediation, normative theories of IR, as well as peace building and scientific responsibility. Since 1981 Thomas Nielebock has been a member of the Working Group on Peace and Conflict Research and since 2015 he has been part of the five-member steering group of the Peacebuilding Service Agency appointed by the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs of Baden-Württemberg. Thomas Nielebock retired in April 2019.

Dr. Jan Sändig

Jan Sändig was a research fellow at the International Relations / Peace and Conflict Studies Unit from 2010 to 2020. His research and teaching focuses on domestic violent conflicts and social movements in sub-Saharan Africa. He also examines the role of civil society in global governance. Between 2011 and 2015 he completed his doctorate at the Tübingen Collaborative Research Centre 923 "Threatened Orders" on the framing of non-violent and armed movements. Subsequently, he did research on local and transnational protests against "land grabbing" (2015-2020). In July 2020 he moved to the Chair of Sociology of Africa at the University of Bayreuth.