As part of my Chair, I am running the research area “Europe in the world”, which convenes research seminars and workshops. More information is available here

I am currently working mainly on three research projects.

I am the principal investigator of the Swiss National Science Foundation-funded project “To Save and To Defend: Global Normative Ambiguity and Regional Order” (2017-23). The projects main aims is to disentangle different definitions and practices of the use of force as well as to analyze the UN's relationship with regional security organizations.

The second research project is entitled “Fighting together, moving apart? European common defence and shared security in an age of Brexit and Trump” (2018-2023). This VolkwagenStiftung-funded project supports the research of a consortium of scholars of public opinion, political elite and social identities. We examine the interlinkages between public opinion, media and political elites on European security and defense issues and strive to examine the dynamic relationship between elites and masses in policy-making about common defense in the multi-level European system.

Lastly, "Ad hoc crisis response and international organisations (ADHOCISM)" (2021-2025), which is funded by the Research Council of Norway and based at NUPI, investigates when and how actors opt for ad hoc coalitions rather than formal international multilateral structures to coordinate multilateral health and crisis management policies as well as the impact that ad hoc coalitions have on international organizations in international security and health.

 

Hofmann, Stephanie C. 2021. “Elastic Relations: Looking to Both Sides of the Atlantic in the 2020 US Presidential Election Year.” Journal of Common Market Studies, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcms.13245. 

Hofmann, Stephanie C. and Benjamin Martill. 2021. “The Party Scene: New Directions for Political Party Research in Foreign Policy Analysis.” International Affairs 97, 2: 305-322.

Hofmann, Stephanie C. 2021. “Beyond Culture and Power: The Role of Party Ideologies in German Foreign and Security Policy.” German Politics 30,1: 51-71.

Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, Mette and Stephanie C. Hofmann. 2020. “Of the Contemporary Global Order, Crisis, and Change.” Journal of European Public Policy 27, 7: 1077-1089.

• featured in “Is the liberal international order in a state of terminal decline?” LSE EUROPP, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2020/01/07/is-the-liberal-international-order-in-a-state-of-terminal-decline/.

Hofmann, Stephanie C. and Frédéric Mérand. 2020. “In search of lost time: Memory-framing, bilateral identity-making, and European security.” Journal of Common Market Studies 58, 1: 155-171.  

Haftel, Yoram and Stephanie C. Hofmann. 2019. “Rivalry and Overlap: Why Regional Economic Organizations Encroach on Security Organizations.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 63, 9: 2180-2206.

Hofmann, Stephanie C. 2019. “The Politics of Overlapping Organizations: Hostage-taking, Forum shopping, and Brokering.” Journal of European Public Policy 26,6: 883-905.

• featured in Washington Post Monkey Cage “Brexit will weigh heavily on European security. Here’s why.” (October 18, 2018).

Hofmann, Stephanie C. 2019. “Global Ordering and Organizational Alternative for Europe: NATO vs. the European Union.” Texas National Security Review (part of Policy Roundtable: Competing Visions for the Global Order, Michael C. Horowitz and Andro Mathewson, eds.) https://tnsr.org/roundtable/policy-roundtable-competing-visions-for-the-global-order/#article.

Hofmann, Stephanie C. and Ueli Staeger. 2019.“Frame contestation and collective securitization: the case of EU energy policy.” West European Politics 42, 2: 323-345.

• also published as book chapter with the same title in Sonia Lucarelli, James Sperling, Mark Webber, eds. Collective Securitisation and Security Governance in the European Union, 97-119. London: Routledge.

In have taught classes on “Conflict and Intervention”, “European Security Challenges and Responses”, “Foreign Policy Analysis”, “Global Order”, “International Governance”, “International Security”, “Regions, Power and Norms”, “Security Governance”, “Multilateral Cooperation and Institutional Complexity” and “Global Ordering and European Security”.

In my teaching, I combine two basic goals: knowledge about particular subjects and critical and analytical thinking. I thereby encourage researchers to go beyond the boundaries of (sub)fields and instead to emphasize problem(atique)-driven research and thinking. More precisely, I try to create classroom environments in which everyone can (i) acquire theoretical, conceptual and empirical knowledge on a given subject with an awareness of disciplinary opportunities and constraints, (ii) become critical evaluators of arguments and methodologies, questioning assumptions and possible biases, (iii) identify research gaps and ways to answer their questions of interest, and (iv) discuss and debate freely. To those ends, I expose researchers to a broad range of theoretical, epistemological and methodological approaches (if possible embedded in a history of ideas) of what regulates and constitutes domestic, regional, international and global politics.

 

 

Over the years, I have enjoyed teaching and discussing with policy makers in Armenia, Belgium, Georgia and Switzerland. I also have conducted independent external evaluations such as for the UN’s Peacebuilding Fund in Burundi, given written testimony on European security policies for the UK House of Lords, and participated in track 2 and 1.5 dialogues between China and Switzerland on conflict prevention. In addition, I sit on the advisory board of several initiatives and institutions that combine academic and policy dialogues such as the EU Cyber Direct or the Institut für Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik and am member of the Munich Security Conference’s jury for the McCain dissertation award. Lastly, I occasionally also write policy papers.

Together with colleagues in Law and History, I am convening this newly established research cluster. More information is available here.

I am interested in supervising a broad range of research topics that broadly fall under the International Relations umbrella. I am particularly curious to read proposals that address original research questions that contribute to the development and refinement of international relations theories, international organizations and their institutional environments, cooperation logics within and across policy domains, policy scope expansion, preference formations processes and questions of global and European security.