Funded Projects (Selection)
Examples of Funded Field Research 2010/2011
Joschka Proksik, Master-thesis: "UN Peacebuilding and Organized Crime in Kosovo: Difficulties in Law Enforcement and Operational Dilemmas"
"My Master-thesis constitutes an in-depth case study on the subject of organised crime and UN peacebuilding and analyses the relation between these two sets of actors in post-war Kosovo.
The primary research objective is to create a dense description about local structures of organised crime and to trace how the UN-led peace-building operation dealt with the problem of criminal networks and their intertwining with local politics in the process of democratic state-building in post-war Kosovo.
For the purposes of my Master-Thesis I conducted field research in Kosovo in 2009 and 2011.
In June 2009 I took part in a study trip to Kosovo in the context of the IACM-seminar “Stability through administration? Ten years of international administration in Kosovo” led by Prof. W. Seibel and Peter Schumann, the former co-head of the Department of Public Services of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
In January 2011 I joined another study trip to Kosovo organized by the University of Konstanz. Apart from the general program I was able to conduct a number of expert interviews with various local and international actors involved in international peacebuilding in Kosovo. The interviews conducted were of great value to my Master-Thesis.
The travelling and accommodation expenses of the study trip to Kosovo in January 2011 were covered by the special funding option that is available for students within the IACM program who plan to conduct field research for their Master-theses."
Examples of Transition Scholarships between MA-Degree and Ph.D.-Studies 2011
Anne Lange, project: "The (non-) use of intelligence in the context of planning and implementing peacekeeping missions - A principal-agent problem" (working title)
"This dissertation project aims at modelling the interplay between the United Nations (UN) Security Council, the main legislative and executive body of the UN, and the UN Secretariat, its bureaucratic counterpart, in the context of peacekeeping as principal-agent relationship. This pioneering work involves adapting – and, thus, reframing – this key concept of the new institutional economics (as developed by Mitnick 1975) to the realities of the UN environment in which peacekeeping operations are planned and fielded.In doing so, it can be built on a rich literature which has expanded agency theory beyond its original economistic model to fit it to a diverse set of institutions. However, the central element of any principal-agent model is information asymmetry with agents enjoying an information advantage. Consequently, the focus of this dissertation project will be on the use of intelligence products in the context of peacekeeping. It will by hypothesized that spheres of autonomy and influence flow from access to intelligence.
Hence, the added value of this dissertation will be twofold: (1) It will test the applicability of agency theory to the UN institutional framework which is a distinct field of application largely neglected so far; and (2) it will merge two broad fields of study in the context of the UN, that are research on the autonomy and independent influence of the UN Secretariat on policy-making in the field of international peace and security and research on peacekeeping intelligence (PKI)."
News
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Zimbabwe: What if not a coup?
Was President Robert Mugabe’s forced retirement really a coup d’état in disguise? And what policies will his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, now offer the country? A conversation with the political scientist and expert on Africa, Martin Welz
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15. March 2017
Wolfgang Seibel to be member of the scientific advisory board of the journal “Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains”
Prof. Wolfgang Seibel has been named a member of the scientific advisory board of the French journal “Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains.”
Wolfgang Seibel is professor of Political and Administrative Science, University of Konstanz. He is member of the executive board and the plenary... -
6. March 2017
New release: The Management of UN Peacekeeping. Edited by Julian Junk, Francesco Mancini, Till Blume, and Wolfgang Seibel
Coordination, Learning, and Leadership in Peace Operations
Boulder: Lynne Rienner 2017