News
16.10.2025
Institutskolloquium IfP (29.10.25) – The Contested Use of Staatsräson: Against the Backdrop of the Gaza Conflict
Speaker: Prof. Antje Wiener (Universität Hamburg)
Wednesday, October 29th 2025, 16:00 c.t. / Room 124, Institut für Politikwissenschaft or online via Zoom
About the lecture: This talk probes the meaning-in-use of Staatsräson and its changes since being reactivated in the German political discourse on October 7, 2023. It presents the development of this norm as the case of a dormant norm that has been changed through a process of normative awakening. Wiener argues that, in the absence of meaningful behavioural or ethical instructions ‘on the norm’ and under the conditions of the ongoing and now expanding conflict, both the number of contestants and the number of sites where contestations take place are growing and diversifying.
By retracing the often-conflictive engagements with the Staatsräson, Wiener observes an emerging norm bundle including neighbouring norms such as ‘from the river to the sea’, ‘genocide’, and so on. In the absence of offering meanings ‘on’ the norm of reason of state, the bundle provides the meaning by adding layers of meaning ‘to’ the norm. With this, Wiener raises a larger question about responsible norm-use by politicians in times of security crisis.
About Prof. Antje Wiener
Antje Wiener is Chair of Political Science, especially Global Governance, at the University of Hamburg, where she is affiliated with both the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences and the Law Faculty. A leading scholar in International Relations, her research and teaching focus on norms research and contestation theory. Reflecting this focus, she co-founded the journal Global Constitutionalism (CUP) and edits the Springer Series on Norm Research in International Relations. For her book Contestation and Constitution of Norms in Global International Relations (CUP, 2018), she received the International Law Section’s Book Prize in 2020.
Wiener is a By-Fellow of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge, a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences, and a Member of the Academia Europaea. Before joining Hamburg, she held Chairs in International Studies at Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Bath, and has taught at Stanford, Carleton, Sussex, and Hannover.
The lecture will be held in English