Joachim Zweynert

Thinking together what belongs together

International political economy deals with the interplay between economics and politics in global contexts. As an interface discipline between political science and economics, it fills a conceptual vacuum between foreign economics and the study of international relations: While economists traditionally tend to neglect the importance of political power positions in foreign economic relations, political scientists regularly underestimate the role that exchange and cooperation play in international politics.

In its research and teaching, the professorship contributes to a renewed focus on economic processes in their political, social and cultural contexts. In order to understand the global problems of the 21st century, such a contextual perspective is absolutely essential as a supplement to specialised disciplinary knowledge.

Joachim Zweynert has been publishing the Journal of Contextual Economics (JCE) since 2016.
 

Research centres on the international dimension of social change and development processes. The aim is always to see economic and political processes in context. A particular focus is on the problem of international institutional transfer, when less developed countries (either voluntarily or under pressure from international organisations such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund) attempt to adopt the economic and political "rules of the game" that apply in more developed countries. Other focal points are the influence of ideas on institutional change processes and the history of economic theory.

Current research topics of the professorship are

• Informal institutions and institutional transfer
• Economic ideas and institutional change
• The theory of "Limited and Open Access Orders"
• International political economy
• Order and institutional economics
• Economic area studies with a focus on East Central and Eastern Europe
• History of economic thought

Selected research projects

• The Political Economy of Mozambique
• British colonial officials in Africa as actors of institutional transfer
• Book project: "A Failed Transition of the Mind?"

Third-party funded projects

• "Between Historicity and Global Pressure to Adapt: Institutions and Institutional Change in Post-Socialism"Interdisciplinary competence network with a total of ten participating research institutions, initially running from 2010-2014, extended by a second funding phase from 2014-2015; funded by the BMBF (totalling approx. €2.6 million).
• "The historical-cultural path dependency of transformation processes in the former socialist countries of the Baltic Sea region and their significance for the enlargement of the European Union", funded by the Volkswagen Foundation with € 273,100. Duration: April 2004 - March 2007.
• "The German Cultural Heritage in Eastern Europe and Historicism in Russian Economics", funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture with € 25,970, completed. Duration: September 2003 - August 2004.
   

Academic qualifications

July 2016
Habilitation at the Department of Economics, University of Hamburg ("Catching-up development, economic ideas and institutional change"

December 2021
Dr rer. pol., University of Hamburg ("A History of Economic Thought in Russia. 1805-1905")

July 1996
Diplom-Volkswirt, University of Hamburg, July 1996.

Positions

since July 2013
Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Witten/Herdecke

Oct. 2011 - June 2013
Substitute Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Witten/Herdecke

April 2010 - Sep. 2011
Deputy Professor of Economics, in particular Economic Policy and Industrial Economics, at the University of Hamburg

May 2007 - Sep. 2011
Scientific Director of the HWWI branch office in Thuringia, Erfurt

April 2004 - March 2007
Research Associate at the HWWA/HWWI, European Integration Department

Oct. 1999 - March 2004
Research Associate at the Institute for Economic Systems, Economic and Theoretical History at the University of Hamburg

April 1997 - Sep. 1999
Research stay in St. Petersburg, Russia

Oct. 1990 - July 1996
Studied economics and political science at the University of Hamburg
 

Since the aim is to "think together what belongs together", namely politics and economics, International Political Economy is of fundamental importance for the Witten Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes in “Philosophy, Politics and Economics” (PPÖ/PPE).

Teaching focuses on issues of globalisation, global governance, economic development and international social inequality. These topics are highly normatively charged. Our teaching deconstructs the widespread myths about globalisation - for example, that globalisation leads to a lowering of social standards - and confronts them with solid empirical findings.

One of the didactic concerns of the professorship is that students learn to deal confidently with the initially confusing variety of possible perspectives that inevitably arise when working at the interface of two disciplines. Time and again, the focus is on how the findings of political science and economics can cross-fertilise each other in order to better understand the problems of a highly interconnected global economy.

The courses generally take the form of seminars and are based on primary literature, which students must prepare independently. Their active participation is encouraged and required.
 

• Globalisation
• Eastern Europe, especially the Russian Federation
   

Referee activities

• Journal of Institutional Economics
• Constitutional Political Economy
• Journal of Economic Issues
• European Journal of the History of Economic Thought
• History of Economic Ideas
• Europe-Asia Studies
• The Slavonic and Eastern European Review

Memberships

• World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research (WINIR)
• CrossArea - Association for Transregional Studies
• German Society for East European Studies
• Committee for Economic Systems and Institutional Economics of the Verein für Socialpolitik
• Committee for the History of Economics of the Verein für Socialpolitik

Academic honours

• "Prize for the best book in the area of the history of economic thought, published in the years 2000, 2001, or 2002", from the European Society for the History of Economic Thought for the monograph Eine Geschichte des ökonomischen Denkens in Russland. 1805-1905 (Marburg: Metropolis 2002).

Foreign languages

• English and Russian (both written and spoken very well)