缅北禁地

Second Semester 2025/2025: Research Leave, thus no regular office hours and email replies might take a little longer thann usual.



TEACHING AND RESEARCH INTERESTS

(International) Political Theory and (International) Political Thought

o  Sociology of knowledge of the discipline of International Relations

o  The scholarship of Hans J Morgenthau

o  Political Ethics, Difference, and “Self”-“Other”-Relations

Epistemologies and Practices of the Unknown: Ethics, Reversibility, and Improvisation

Peace and Conflict Studies

Political Cosmologies

Methods 

Interpretivist Methods

o  Text Hermeneutics

o  Archival Research

o  Policy Document Analysis (esp. Interpretation, Process Tracing)

Methodologies of

o  Intertextuality and Synoptic Reading

o  Translation

I am interested in the supervision of PhD students on the topics above, having guided 16 PhDs (many of them funded through NINE DTP/ESRC studentships) over the recent years to successful and timely completion. Working with younger researchers is a key part of my understanding of the profession, including co-authorship as an important element of this. Many previous supervisees have moved on as Lecturers and Senior Lecturers at other universities and into Civil Servant schemes. I received 缅北禁地's Teaching Award for PhD supervision in 2014.

I am currently (co-)supervising four PhD students (all funded through NINE DTP/ESRC studentships), working on philosophical/cosmological understandings of "human"-"nature" relationships, with empirical case studies on green defence, UK and UN environmental politics as well as on environmental ethics.

Currently I pursue three research projects: on

(1) Improvisation, Temporalities, and Political Practice

(2) Narratives of Belonging: Communities Under Stress

(3) Political Cosmologies: Non-Anthropocentrism and Policy Making in the Anthropocene

Please find below short descriptions of these projects:

(1) In contrast to rationalist action models, assumptions of stability, and their massive influences in the sciences and policy making (e.g., in Rawlsian and Habermasian legacies), there are only sporadic attempts in political and social sciences to conceptualise political action under conditions of uncertainty, contingency, and fluidity (such as foremost from Hannah Arendt, Hans Joas, Pierre Bourdieu, Zygmunt Baumann, Bruno Latour). This research focuses on forms of creativity under conditions of uncertainty and studies notions of improvisation as rituals and practices in music and dance. Key for this research is the relation of improvisation (understood as as non-prescribed acting together into an unforeseeable and unknown future) to theory-practice relationships with the aim to formulate lessons to be learned for, but not restricted to, policy-making in a world of political crisis and to political leadership. Management theory has already adopted improvisation in music, especially the work of US Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, as new form of creativity. Political sciences and International Relations seem to lack behind. Part of possible lessons from improvisation relate to the problem of cross-cutting temporalities and how they affect political practices. Theoretical reflections and empirical examples of on the relationship between political practice and temporality(ies) enrich the analogy to improvisation, the latter providing a possible practical example of navigating and coping creatively with intersecting (temporal) structures and non-knowledge. 

This research emerges from research and discussions in the international Research Network , funded by The Leverhulme Trust (IN-2012-122), 2013-2015, as well as directly from my recent book on Reversibility – Politics under Conditions of Uncertainty, with McGill-Queens University Press, 2024 () where I have reflected on music improvisation as an action model for politics under conditions of epistemological uncertainty.

(2) This interdisciplinary research, based on several workshops and a , investigates comparatively discourses and practices of identity formation in UK and Japan communities and their underlying eppistemologies that experienced disaster situations due to climate change. The research team (political scientists, ethnographers, anthropologists, with civil engineers as consultants) will explore identity discourses during and in the aftermath of crises, working with community members and practitioners (like nurses, rescue workers, and local politicians), exploring their experiences, memories, and practices coping with emergency situations. Research questions are: How does community identity develop under stress? Does it fall apart into individual interests or strengthen? Are either temporary or enduring? What lessons can be learned? 

The need for disaster management will become more and more significant and increase in a world of poly-crises and climate change that will put communities worldwide at risk of survival and their lands at risk of habitability through man-made or natural catastrophes. In their response to disasters, hit communities can not solely rely on national rescue, medical, or energy support, but must develop place-based communal strategies. As newest research has shown, the success of respective strategies depends on communal cohesion and solidarity; put differently as underlying hypothesis of this research: The proficiency and success of disaster management and its distinct practical strategies depend upon the formation of communal identity and its conditioning of values such as cohesion, solidarity, and stamina. The most expensive and professionally devised humanitarian designs are at stake to come to nothing if the community’s identity is not receptive and responsive to them. This research does not focus on the study of emergency practices and humanitarian design products, but on discursive identity formation underlying and conditioning the success of these practices and designs.

(3) In a co-authored book project with Giorgio Shani, we search for non-anthropocentric conceptions of the place of the human, particularly in relation to other sentient beings. This search brings together the work of a wide array of renowned authors such as Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers, Ilya Prigogine, Donna Haraway, Jane Bennett, Ulrich Beck, William Connolly, or Dipesh Chakrabarty. Current debates in Western societies on the Anthropocene and human made climate change have accelerated an argument that was made already some 45 years ago by Progogine and Stengers. They emphasised the equal and reciprocal togetherness of humans and all non-human environments and thus requested a non-anthropocentric understanding of the human. Non-anthropocentrism resonates with the language of reversibility suggested by Hans Jonas in his ethics of responsibility in a technological age and by Hannah Arendt, together with forgiveness and promise, as ethical virtues against the irreversibility of human action. We have been inspired by these discourses and explore cosmological discourses in Western and post-Western contexts. My contribution to this book project is inspired by research in the context of , particulalry Chapters 1-4 on an Ethics of Self-Restraint and Chapter 10 on environmental ethics in the Anthropocene.

Feedback and Consultation Hours, 2^nd semester 2024/25

Wednesday 10-12 pm (HDB 4.24)

Tuesday 11-12 (HDB 4.24)

Undergraduate Teaching

POL 3081 International Political Thought

POL 2082 Political Violence and the Modern State

Postgraduate Teaching

POL8069 Studying International Relations: Key Challenges

• Articles

  • Behr H. . Politics: rivista di studi politici 2025, (22 (6° nuova serie)), 37-52.
  • Behr H, Rösch F. . Telos 2023, (202), 3-19.
  • Behr H, Rösch F. . Telos 2023, (202), 103-121.
  • Behr H, Shani G. . E-International Relations 2022.
  • Behr H, Steffek J, Mueller M. . International Studies Review 2021, 23(1), 30-58.
  • Behr H, Shani G. . Millennium: Journal of International Studies 2021, 49(2), 368-391.
  • Behr H. . European Journal of International Relations 2019, 25(4), 1212-1235.
  • Beardsworth R, Behr H, Luke T. . Journal of International Political Theory 2019, 15(3), 270-278.
  • Behr H. . Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 2018, 12(3), 335-351.
  • Behr EH, Megoran NWS, Carnaffan J. . Journal of Peace Education 2018, 15(1), 76-96.
  • Behr H. . Global Affairs 2017, 3(1), 73-80.
  • Behr H, Williams MC. . Journal of International Political Theory 2017, 13(1), 3-17.
  • Behr H. . Journal of International Political Theory 2017, 13(1), 122-140.
  • Behr H. . Ethics and International Affairs 2016, 30(1), 33-38.
  • Papagiannidis S, Stamati T, Behr H. . International Journal of E-Business Research 2013, 9(4), 47-66.
  • Behr H. . International Politics 2013, 50, 753-767.
  • Behr H. . Review of European Studies (Special Issue edited by Hartmut Behr and Yannis Stivachtis) 2012, 4(3), 7-17.
  • Behr H, Berger L. . Terrorism and Political Violence 2009, 21(4), 539-557.
  • Behr EH, Heath MA. . Review of International Studies 2009, 35(2), 327-349.
  • Behr H. . Ethics and Social Science/Erwaegen, Wissen, Ethik 2008, (4), 51-53.
  • Behr H. . Geopolitics 2008, 13(2), 359-382.
  • Behr EH. . European Journal of International Relations 2007, 13(2), 239-262.
  • Behr EH. . Political Economy 2005, 2, 1-18.
  • Behr EH. . Zeitschrift fur Politikwissenschaft 2005, 15(1), 61-90.
  • Behr EH. Vereinte Nationen und Terrorismus. UN Basis Informationen: Deutsche Gesellschaft der Vereinten Nationen/German Association of the United Nation 2004, 1.
  • Behr EH. . Zeitschrift fur Internationale Beziehungen 2004, 11(1), 27-59.
  • Behr EH. . Humboldt Kosmos 2004, July 2004, 14-15.
  • Behr EH. . Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft, Politik. Sozialwissenschaften fuer die Politische Bildung 2004, 2, 213-224.
  • Behr EH. . Zeitschrift fuer Politik 2004, 4, 135-153.
  • Behr EH. . Constellations - An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 2002, 9(3), 450-452.
  • Behr EH. . Forschungsjournal neue soziale Bewegungen NSB 2001, 1, 99-109.

• Authored Books

  • Behr H. . Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2024.
  • Behr EH. . London: Routledge, 2014.
  • Behr EH. . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
  • Behr EH. . Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2004.
  • Behr EH. . Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 1998.

• Book Chapters

  • Behr H, Devereux L. . In: Richmond, O; Visoka, G, ed. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
  • Behr H. . In: Hinton AL; Shani G; Alberg J, ed. Rethinking Peace. Discourse, Memory, Translation, and Dialogue. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019, pp.174-190.
  • Behr H, Sigwart HJ. . In: Navari, Cornelia, ed. Hans Morgenthau and the American Experience. Palgrave, 2018, pp.27-54.
  • Behr H, Devereux L. . In: Kettler D; Meja V, ed. The Anthem Companion to Karl Mannheim. London: Anthem Press, London, 2017, pp.117-135.
  • Behr H. . In: Sedmak, Clemens, ed. Toleranz. Vom Wert der Vielfalt. Wissenschaftlicge Buchgesellschaft, 2015, pp.45-62.
  • Behr Hartmut. . In: Rohde, Christopher; Troy, Jodok, ed. Macht, Recht, Demokratie. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015, pp.163-174.
  • Behr H. . In: Stivachtis,YA; Behr,H, ed. Revisiting the European Union as Empire. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2015, pp.32-44.
  • Behr H, Kirke X. . In: Felix Roesch, ed. Émigré Scholars and the Genesis of American International Relations. A European Discipline in America?. Palgrave MacMillan, 2014.
  • Papagiannidis S, Stamati T, Behr H. . In: Digital Arts and Entertainment: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. IGI Global, 2014, pp.1217-1237.
  • Papagiannidis S, Stamati T, Behr H. . In: Integrating Social Media into Business Practice, Applications, Management, and Models. IGI Global, 2014, pp.127-145.
  • Behr H. . In: Mark Bevir, Oliver Daddow, Ian Hall, ed. Interpreting Global Security. London, UK: Routledge, 2013, pp.160-176.
  • Behr H, Roesch F. . In: Jodok Troy, ed. Religion and the Realist Tradition: From Political Theology to International Relations Theory and Back. London, UK: Routledge, 2013, pp.111-128.
  • Behr H, Roesch F. . In: Hans J. Morgenthau, and edited by Behr, H., Roesch, F, ed. The Concept of the Political. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
  • Behr EH. . In: Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law, ed. Proceedings of an International Symposium March 2009. Tunis, 2010, pp.19-33.
  • Behr EH. . In: Wharf, B, ed. Encyclopaedia of Geography. London, UK: Sage Publications, 2010.
  • Behr EH. . In: Lauth, H-J, ed. Comparative Politics: An Introduction. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2010, pp.73-91.
  • Behr EH. . In: Lauth HJ, ed. Vergleichende Regierungslehre - Eine Einfuehrung. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2006, pp.70-90.
  • Behr EH. . In: Hubel, H., Kaim, M, ed. Conflicts in the Greater Middle East: US and German Perspectives. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2004, pp.137-158.
  • Behr EH. . In: Willems U, ed. Interesse und Moral als Orientierungen politischen Handelns. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2003, pp.315-332.
  • Behr EH. . In: Behr EH; Kaim M, ed. Der Irak-Konflikt. Jena: Forum Politicum Jenense, 2003, pp.41-46.
  • Behr EH. . In: Schmitt K, ed. Politik und Raum. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2002, pp.59-78.
  • Behr EH. . In: Hildebrandt M; Bendel P, ed. Im Schatten des Terrorismus. Hintergruende, Strukturen und Konsequenzen des 11. September 2001. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2002, pp.109-130.
  • Behr EH. . In: Kemp, W., Mayer, B, ed. Religion und Zivilreligion im atlantischen Buendnis. Trier: Atlantische Akademie Rheinland Pfalz, 2001, pp.129-141.
  • Behr EH. . In: Behr, E.H., Schmidt, S, ed. Multikulturelle Demokratien. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001, pp.1-23.
  • Behr EH. . In: Brodocz, A., Schal, G, ed. Politische Theorien der Gegenwart II. Opladen: UTB, Leske + Budrich, 2001, pp.379-404.

• Edited Books

  • Behr H, Roesch F, ed. . Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
  • Stivachtis Yannis, Behr Hartmut, ed. Revisiting the European Union as Empire. Routledge, 2016. In Preparation.
  • Morgenthau HJ, Behr EH, Rösch F, ed. . London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
  • Behr EH, Stivachtis I, ed. . Toronto, Canada: Canadian Center of Science and Education, 2012.
  • Behr EH, Mathias H, ed. . Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2006.
  • Behr EH, ed. . Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2003.

• Editorial

  • Behr EH. . Area 2007, 39(1), 112-115.