Prof. Dr. Oliver Kessler

Academic career

• Since 2012
  Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science
• 2011–2012
  Professor of History and Theory of International Relations at the University of Groningen (NL)
• 2009–2010
  Professor (substitute) of International Political Theory at the Geschwister Scholl Institute for Political Science at LMU Munich
• 2005–2008
  Research assistant in the field of international relations at Bielefeld University
• 2003–2005
  Research assistant (postdoctoral fellow) at the Institute for World Society
• 2000–2003
  Doctoral candidate in the Politics-Law-Philosophy Research Network

Education

• Since 2012
  Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science
• 2011–2012
  Professor of History and Theory of International Relations at the University of Groningen (NL)
• 2009–2010
  Professor (substitute) of International Political Theory at the Geschwister Scholl Institute for Political Science at LMU Munich
• 2005–2008
  Research assistant in the field of international relations at Bielefeld University
• 2003–2005
  Research assistant (postdoctoral fellow) at the Institute for World Society
• 2000–2003
  Doctoral candidate in the Politics-Law-Philosophy Research Network

Current projects

• 2025: Postgraduate school 'De-Globe' funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation
• 2025: Research Coordinator of the 'Erfurt Research Centre for Geo-Economics', funded by FTI-Thüringen Forschung
• 2022: Research coordinator in the 'Postcolonial Hierarchies' network, funded by the BMBF

Completed projects

• 2018-2024: Research Coordinator for Political Economy at the Merian Centre 'Transformation of the Political'
• 2020-2024: Research cooperation in the field of conceptual history of international relations under the direction of Halvard Leira; NUPI Oslo
• 2014-2019: State Excellence Initiative 'Ordering Dynamics' with André Brodocz, Martin Fuchs and Jörg Rüpke
• 2013-2016: 'Local Politicisation of Global Norms'; Ministry of Education Thuringia, with Andreas Pettenkofer, André Brodocz and others
• 2010-2014: COST Action 1003 on 'Fragmentation and Constitutionalisation of International Law' with Wouter Werner
• 2009-2014: Network on 'Financialisation'; German Research Foundation (DFG), with Andreas Nölke
• 2009-2014: COST Action on 'The Current Financial Crisis' with Timothy Sinclair
• 2000-2003: Doctoral scholarships from the Free State of Bavaria for talented young researchers
• 2001: German Academic Exchange Service, scholarship for Harvard

Research Associations

• International Studies Association (ISA)
• British International Studies Association (BISA)
• German Political Science Association (DVPW)
• European International Studies Association (EISA)
• European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE)

Publisher

• 2022- ongoing: European Journal of International Relations
• 2014: Book series 'Horizons of International Relations'; Springer Verlag
• 2008: Book series 'International Political Economy'; Springer Verlag

Advisory Board of journals

• 2020- ongoing: Review of Political Economy (REPE)
• 2019- ongoing: PARISS
• 2018- ongoing: Millenium: Journal of International Studies
• 2011-2015: Review of International Studies
• 2007-2009: Goettingen Journal for International Law

The international political economy of risk: the example of the Asian crisis. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. (2008)

• 2026: Post-Positivism as a European Tradition, Sage, (with Benjamin Herborth)
• 2026: Practice Turn and its Critics (with Frank Gadinger), Oxofrd University Press
• 2018: Going Quantum: Millennium
• 2015: The Status of Law in World Society. Millennium (with contributions from Jens Bartelson, Stefano Guzzini, Tanja Aalberts, and Wouter Werner), forthcoming
• 2015: The third generation of Constructivism, special issue in European Review of International Studies (with Brent Steele)
• 2015: Reclaiming Constructivism, special issue in e-IR (with Brent Steele)
• 2012: Critical Realism. Review of International Studies 38(1): 187-274 (with contributions from Afri Badredine, Benjamin Herborth, Torsten Michel, Martin Weber and Colin Wight)
• 2011: The Political Economy of the Global Financial Crisis. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag
• 2010: On Rules, Politics and Knowledge: Friedrich Kratochwil, International Relations, and Domestic Affairs. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan (edited with Rodney Bruce Hall, Ceceila Lynch and Nicholas Onuf)
• 2010: So Close Yet So Far Away? International Law in International Political Sociology. International Political Sociology 3(4): 303-321 (with contributions from Jan Klabbers, Friedrich Kratochwil, Philip Liste, Nicholas Onuf and Wouter Werner)
• 2009: The Subprime Crisis as a Crisis of the 21st Century? Journal of International Relations 10(1): 103-175 (with contributions from Hans-Jürgen Bieling, Andreas Nölke and Brigitte Young)
• 2009: Interrogating the Current Financial Crisis. International Political Sociology, 4(4): 449-468 (with contributions from Jacqueline Best, Rodney Bruce Hall, Anna Leander, Leonard Seabrooke, Timothy Sinclair and Eleni Tsingou)

• 2026: What IPS is and what it is not and why it matters (with Madeleine Böhm), International Studies Quarterly, under review
• 2025: Saddle Time as Transitional Order? Global Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
• 2025: Is there a theory of concepts in Bartelson? Forum: On Jens/Becoming Bartelson. Cooperation and Conflict, 0(0).
• 2025: Failure and Critique of the Market. Millennium 52, 590-608.
• 2024: Translation and the limits of critique, in Forum on Heikki Patomäki's World Statehood: The Future of World Politics, Cooperation and Conflict 'Vol. 59, Issue 4
• 2024: 'Stories We Live by: The Rise of Historical IR and the Move to Concepts'. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, February, 1-19 (with Halvard Leira)
• 2024: 'The Future Is Just Another Past'. Review of International Studies 50 (3): 425-40. (with Halvard Leira)
• 2023: 'Beyond Market Neutrality? Central Banks and the Problem of Climate Change'. (with Matthias Thiemann and Tim Büttner, and Oliver Kessler), 2023. Finance and Society 9 (1): 14-34.
• 2020: Digital Technologies and Temporal Relationality, International Relations
• 2017: Racialised Futures. On Finance; Risk and Slave Trades, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 2017. (with Charles Dannreuther)
• 2016: The Contingency of Constructivism. On Norms, the Social and the Third. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 45(1): 43-63
• 2016: The Failure of Failure: on Constructivism, the Limits of Critique, and the Socio- Political Economy of Economics. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 44(3): 348-369.
• 2016: 'The Power of Legality, Legitimacy and the (Im)Possibility of Interdisciplinary Research', in: N. Rajkovic/T. Aalberts/T. Gammeltoft-Hansen (eds.): The Power of Legality: Practices of International Law and their Politics. (with Filipe dos Reis)
• 2016: 'Constructivism and the Politics of International Law', in: F. Hoffmann/A. Orford (eds.): Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (with Filipe dos Reis)
• 2013: Constructivism as an Approach to Global Political Economy: Journal of Foreign and Security Policy 6(1 Supplement): 31-49.
• 2013: Expertise, Uncertainty and International Law: A Study of the Tallinn Manual on Cyberwarfare. Leiden Journal of International Law 26(4): 793-810. (with Wouter Werner)
• 2013: Financialisation and the Three Utopias of Shadow Banking. Competition & Change 7(3): 248-264. (with Benjamin Wilhelm)
• 2013: Recognition and the constitution of social order. International Theory 5(1): 155-160. (with Benjamin Herborth)
• 2012: World Society, Social Differentiation and Time. International Political Sociology 6(1): 77-94.
• 2012: Introduction: To be or not to be: Critical Realism in International Thought. Review of International Studies 38(1): 187-189.
• 2012: On logic, intersubjectivity, and meaning: is reality an assumption we just don't need?. Review of International Studies 38(1): 253-265.
• 2012: Everyday practices in international relations: people in organisations. Journal of International Relations and Development 15(2): 110-120. (with Xavier Guillaume)
• 2012: Sleeping with the enemy? On Hayek, the current economic crisis and constructivist thought. Review of International Studies 38(2): 275-299.
• 2011: Artificial Horizons. International Political Sociology 5(1): 87-91.
• 2011: The Same as it Never Was? International Law in Times of Uncertainty. Review of International Studies 37(5): 2163-2182.
• 2011: Beyond Sectors, before the world: Finance, Security and Risk. Security Dialogue 42(2): 197-215.
• 2010: International Relations: Misguided development or lack of development in international relations? Journal of International Relations 17(2): 368-375.
• 2009: The Subprime Crisis and the Question of Financial Stability. Journal of International Relations 16(1): 161-175.
• 2009: Introduction: The subprime crisis - really a crisis of the 21st century? Journal of International Relations 16(1): 103-105.
• 2009: Between Anarchy and World Society: towards a sociology of 'the international'?' International Political Sociology, 4(1): 87-109.
• 2009: Toward a Sociology of the International? International Relations between Anarchy and World Society. Journal of International Political Sociology 3(1): 132-136.
• 2008: Is Risk Changing the Politics of International Legal Argumentation?. Leiden Journal of International Law 21(4): 863-884.
• 2008: Uncertainty, Rationality, and the Study of Social Institutions. Review of Social Economy 66(4): 501-523.
• 2008: From insecurity to uncertainty: risk and the security paradox. Alternatives 33(2): 211-232. (with Christopher Daase)
• 2008: Of Communication, Order, and Conflict. Review of International Studies 34 Supplement 1: 43-67. (with Mathias Albert and Stephan Stetter)
• 2008 : Extra juridical killing as risk management: the breakdown of legal rationalities in the fight against terrorism. Security Dialogue 39(2): 299-322. (with Wouter Werner)
• 2007 : Knowns and Unknowns and the Political Construction of Danger Security Dialogue 38(4):411-434. (with Christopher Daase)
• 2007: Border, Order and Regionalisation. Geopolitics 12(4): 570-587. (with Jan Helmig)
• 2007: From Agent and Structures to Minds and Bodies. Journal of International Relations and Development. 10(3):243-272.
• 2007: Space, Boundaries and the Problem of Order. International Political Sociology 1(3): 240-256. (with Jan Helmig)
• 2007: Authority, Ambiguity and Risk: the changing politics of global finance. Review of International Political Economy 14(2): 357-370.
• 2007: Performativity and the Boundaries of Economic Sociology. Current Sociology 55(1): 110-125.
• 2006: Social Contingency: An Avenue for Engaging Regulation Theory with Systems Theory. Competition and Change 10(2): 221-238.
• 2005: Ignorance and the Establishment of Governance Regimes. WorldTrends 13(46): 71-82.

• 2026: "The Market", in Felix Berenskoetter, ed, Concepts in World Politics: London: Sage
• 2024: "Morgenthau in Translation" in Mauro J. Caraccioli and Einar Wigen, eds. Interlingual Relations. University of Michigan Press. (with Filipe dos Reis)
• 2023: 'The Study of Failures and the Problem of Contingency'. In Routledge International Handbook of Failure, edited by Adriana Mica, Mikołaj Pawlak, Anna Horolets, and Paweł Kubicki, 123-36. Routledge International Handbooks. Abingdon New York (N.Y.): Routledge
• 2023: 'Practice, Intersubjectivity and the Problem of Contingency'. In Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics, edited by Gunther Hellmann and Jens Steffek, 166-81. Bristol University Press
• 2022: Failure, in Adriana Mica et. Al, Handbook of Failure Studies
• 2022: Contingency and the Problem of Practice, in Gunther Hellmann/Steffek, the Problem of Practice in International Relations
• 2022: Conceptual History, Oxford Handbook of Historical International Relations, edited by de Carvalho et. al
• 2021: Contingency of Translation, in dos Reis et al, The Politics of Translation in International Relations, 237-243
• 2021: Concepts In IR, with Jan Wilkens, In Ish-Shalom (ed.) Concepts at Work: On the Linguistic Infrastructure of World Politics
• 2018: Constructivism Realism Contingency, in Constructivism Reconsidered
• 2018: Legitimacy, in D'Aspremont, Concepts in International Law; Cambridge University Press
• 2017: 'World Society' in X. Guillaume (ed): International Political Sociology as a pluridisciplinary field. London: Routledge
• 2017: 'Society' in F. Berenskoetter (ed.): Concepts in World Politics. London: Sage; (with Benjamin Herborth) forthcoming.
• 2017: 'Visions of Man: A view from systems theory', in D. Jacobi/A. Freyberg-Innan (eds.): The Human Element in International Relations Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
• 2016: 'The Power of Legality, Legitimacy and the (Im)Possibility of Interdisciplinary Research', in: N. Rajkovic/T. Aalberts/T. Gammeltoft-Hansen (eds.): The Power of Legality: Practices of International Law and their Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. (with Filipe dos Reis)
• 2016: 'Constructivism and the Politics of International Law', in: F. Hoffmann/A. Orford (eds.): Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming. (with Filipe dos Reis)
• 2015: 'Ignorance and the Sociology of Economics', in: M. Gross/L.McGoey (eds.): Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. London: Routledge.
• 2015: 'What price culture? Calculation, commensuration, contingency, and authorities in financial practices', in: B. Jessop/C. Scherrer/B. Young (eds.): Financial Cultures and Crisis Dynamics. London: Routledge.
• 2014: 'Financialisation and the Performativity of the Shadow Banking System', in: A. Nölke/M. Heires (eds.): Politics of Financialisation. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. (with Benjamin Wilhelm)
• 2013: 'Functional differentiation and the oughts and musts of international law', in: M. Albert/B. Buzan/M. Zürn (eds.): Bringing Sociology to International Relations: World Politics as Differentiation Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (with Friedrich Kratochwil)
• 2013: 'The Transformation of Law and Politics of Global Security', in: A. Fischer-Lescano/P. Mayer (eds.): Law and Politics of Global Security. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus. (with Mathias Albert)
• 2013: 'The crisis as a system? The discursive construction of 'risk' and 'uncertainty'', in: J. Maeße (ed.): Ökonomie, Diskurs, Regierung. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• 2013: 'Systems Theory', in: J. Wullweber/A. Graf/M. Behrens (eds): Theories of International Political Economy. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
• 2010: 'On Norms, Communication and the Problem of Practice', in: O. Kessler/R. Hall/C. Lynch/N. Onuf (eds): On Rules, Politics and Knowledge: Friedrich Kratochwil, International Relations, and Domestic Affairs. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
• 2010 : 'The Public Sphere', in: R. Denemark (ed.): The International Studies Encyclopedia. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. (with Benjamin Herborth)
• 2010: 'Risk', in: P. Burgess (ed.): New Security Studies. London: Routledge.
• 2009: 'Logic, Intersubjectivity and Reality: is logic of relevance for understanding politics?', in: P. Estevez (ed.): Meta-theoretical Discussions in International Relations. (in Portuguese)
• 2009 : 'Systems Theory between Explaining and Understanding', in: M. Albert/L.-E. Cederman/A. Wendt (eds.): New System Theories of World Politics. London: Palgrave. (with Friedrich Kratochwil)
• 2009: 'Finance as Transnational Space and the Memory of the Gold Standard', in: M. Albert/G. Blum/J. Helmig/A. Leutzsch/J. Walter (eds.): Transnational Political Spaces, Agents - Structures - Encounters. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus.
• 2009: 'Beyond the Economic Bias: the social construction of economic risks', in: C. Hay/A. Gofas (eds.): The Ideational Turn in International Relations. London: Routledge.
• 2008: 'The State in Social Economics', in: W. Dolfsma (ed.): Companion to Social Economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. (with Charles Dannreuther)
• 2008: 'The Limits of Bayesian Thought to the Study of Economic Institutions', in: W. Elsner/H. Happani (eds.): Advances in Evolutionary Institutional Economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• 2007: 'Uncertainty, Uncertainty and Risk: Temporality and the Rationality of Financial Markets', in: A. Langenohl/K. Schmidt-Beck (eds.): Die Markt-Zeit der Finanzwirtschaft. Frankfurt: Metropolis.
• 2007: 'Revolutions and Democracy: On the Historical Semantics of Political Change', in: A. Bartels (ed.): Revolutions: Concepts, Discourses, and Practices of Revolutionary Action in Our Time. Frankfurt: Lang. (with Benjamin Herborth)
• 2006: 'Die Konstruktion von Expertise: eine systemtheoretische Rekonstruktion? ', in: G. Hellmann (ed.): Science and Counselling in the Knowledge Society, Baden-Baden: Nomos.

• Research Seminar International Relations
• The rise of geoeconomics
• Scenario analysis
• Drivers and structures after globalisation
• Emergence and transformation of the state system
• Introduction to Comparative Politics I and II
• Introduction to International Relations I and II (lecture and seminar)
• Introduction to International Political Theory (lecture)
• Logic of the Social Sciences
• Logic of the Social Sciences: Reconstruction of Constructivism
• New Literature in International Relations
• Political Communication and Mass Media
• Political Communication and Organisation
• Political economy of economic crises
• Political organisations
• Postpositivist Thinking in International Relations (Lecture)
• Problems of International Political Theory
• Project of modernity and practices of world politics
• Politics of International Law I and II
• Rethinking the Political - Reconstruction of Constructivism
• Risk Regime

Current

• Goll, Anna
• Boscanic, Alain

Finished

• Böhm, Madeleine (University of Erfurt)
• Çapan, Zeynep Gülsah (University of Erfurt)
• Hesse, Andrei (University of Erfurt)
• Baran, Carsten (University of Erfurt)
• Dos Reis, Filipe (University of Erfurt)