Who is who
Board of Directors
Mathias Albert
Mathias Albert is Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Sociology of Bielefeld University. He is currently also the speaker of the Research Training Group 'World Politics'. His current main research interests are the sociology and history of world politics and world society theory. Other major research fields are the politics of the polar regions and youth research. Recent book publications include (ed. with Tobias Werron): What in the World? Understanding Global Social Change. Bristol: Bristol University Press 2021 and (ed. with Sandra Holtgrewe and Karlson Preuß) Envisioning the World: Mapping and Making the Global. Bielefeld: transcript 2021.
Ulrike Davy
Ulrike Davy is professor for constitutional and administrative law, German and international social law, and comparative law at the Faculty of Law of Bielefeld University. Additionally, she is Principal Investigator under the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center 1288 Practices of Comparing, Principal Investigator under the DFG-funded Research Training Group World Politics, and member of the University Council of Bielefeld University. Her research concentrates on migration and refugee law, history and theory of the welfare state, European and global social policy, and universal human rights law, in particular, social rights and the right to equality. Recent publications: Refugee Crisis in Germany and the Right to a Subsistence Minimum: Differences That Ought Not Be, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 47, 2 (2019) 367-450; Wenn Gleichheit in Gefahr ist. Staatliche Schutzpflichten und Schutzbedürftigkeit am Beispiel des Minderheitenschutzes und des Schutzes vor rassischer Diskriminierung, ZÖR 74, 4 (2019) 773-844; Sozialpolitik der Union, in: Matthias Niedobitek (Hg.), Europarecht. Berlin (2020): de Gruyter, 1447-1568.
Ralf Rapior
Working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Ralf Rapior broadly addresses postcolonial critique of sociological knowledge. He examines Sociology’s Eurocentrism, imperial amnesia, entanglements and legacies. Engaging with postcolonial global and imperial history, he critically carries on the tradition of Historical Sociology. His main research fields are postcolonial and global historical sociologies, with specific interest in social history and theory of empires, states and societies, multiple modernities, globalizations and world society, and the form of sociology itself. His main publications are: „Imperien: Zur Soziologie einer vergessenen Vergesellschaftungsform“ [Empires: Towards a Sociology of a Forgotten Form of Societization] (forthcoming 2022, Frankfurt a.M.: Campus); „Bringing the Empire (Back) In: Zur Überwindung des Eurozentrismus in der Weltgesellschaftsforschung“ [Overcoming Eurocentrism in World Society Studies] (2020 in Bennani H, Bühler M, Cramer S, Glauser A (Eds): Global beobachten und vergleichen. Soziologische Analysen zur Weltgesellschaft, Frankfurt a.M.: Campus: 35-77); „There Is No Country That Has Not Passed Through a Colonial Regime: Zum Imperium als Grundbegriff historischer Soziologie“ [On Empire as a Basic Concept of Historical Sociology] (2019 in Burzan N (Ed): Komplexe Dynamiken globaler und lokaler Entwicklungen. Verhandlungen des 39. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Göttingen 2018, Essen: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie).
Holger Straßheim
Holger Strassheim is Professor of Political Sociology at the Faculty of Sociology. In his work he explores the intertwinement of science and politics in world society, the role of expertise in public policy, the ways economic discourses shape social regulation and the governance networks in and between policy areas such as consumer policy, food safety, energy, mobility, global health and climate change. Holger is appointed member of the Ethics Commission at Bielefeld University and elected board member at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Science (ISOS). He is a member of the editorial board of the Critical Policy Studies Journal and co-editor of the Advances in Critical Policy Book Series. Among his most recent publications is the "Handbook of Behavioural Change and Public Policy" (2019, co-edited with S. Beck.).
Tobias Werron
Tobias Werron is Professor of Sociological Theory at the Faculty of Sociology. His main areas of research are globalization and world society theory, sociology of competition, media sociology, and the sociology of sport. Together with Leopod Ringel, he is currently pursuing a research projekt on the historical sociology of rankings. Recent publications in the area of world society studies include the books "From Globalization to World Society" (2014, edited together with Boris Holzer and Fatima Kastner) and „What in the World? Understanding Global Social Change (2020, edited together with Mathias Albert).