Joscha Wullweber

The Heisenberg Professorship for Politics, Transformation and Sustainability is concerned with national, international and transnational political-economic and political-ecological governance processes and structures. A special focus is on the European, American and global financial system, including the shadow banking system, on financial crises and the euro crisis as well as on the monetary policy of the leading central banks. Another focus is on questions of the political economy and governance of sustainable transformation, i.e. political-ecological and political-economic societal transformations against the background of the governance of climate and environmental crises (e.g. biodiversity loss). The role of state technology and innovation policy is also analysed.

Joscha Wullweber is Director of the Centre for Sustainable and Just Transformation [tra:ce].

The focus of the research is on:

• Central bank policy and governance of finance
• Political economy of sustainable transformation
• Carbon finance and ecological crisis
• Governance of the shadow banking system
• Credit and monetary theories
• Governance of the COVID-19 financial crisis
• Governance of innovation and technology
• Sustainable finance
• Urban transformation

Ongoing third-party funded research projects:

Climate change and global finance at the crossroads

The BMBF-funded project: Policy challenges, politico-economic dynamics, and sustainable transformation

Urban Zero

The Urban Zero transformation project aims to turn the harbour district of Duisburg-Ruhrort into the world's first environmentally neutral neighbourhood by the end of 2029. The UW/H is providing scientific support for the project under the direction of Prof. Dr Wullweber in order to develop generalisable conditions for the success of sustainable and equitable transformation processes.

Neutrality lost: The politics of central banking in the age of shadow banks and new challenges for the global governance of finance

The aim of this Heisenberg project is to understand and analyse the new political power of central banks in the global governance of finance since the global financial crisis. The project examines how central bank politics and the politico-economic role of central banks are adapting to the new challenges of the global financial structure with a special focus on the shadow banking system. It explores how new political processes are changing the overall regulative configuration, and how changes in monetary policies are being politically legitimised.

Publications:

Academic staff

Dr Jan Fichtner

Dr Sonja Knobbe

Paula Haufe, M.A.

Nicolás Águila, M.A.

Janina Urban, M. Sc.

Simon Schairer, M.A.

Riccardo Baioni, M.A.

Student assistants

Julius Dreyer

Luisa Schwab

Lina Berger

At the centre of teaching are

• Political economy of sustainable transformation
• Central bank policy
• Global governance of finance
• Global governance of socio-ecological and climate crises
• Political economy of climate change
• Theories of money and credit
• Theories and methods of international political economy
• Theories of the State
• Political Theory
• Global Dynamics of Sustainable Transformation

Media appearances:

Scobel

Prof. Dr Joscha Wullweber appears on a panel with Prof. Dr Stefan Brunnhuber and Dr Mariana Bozesan in the scobel programme on 3sat. They discuss ways out of the so-called debt crisis. How to deal with national debt? Do young and future generations have to pay off these debts? Is reducing debt more important than investing in the future, e.g. in future technologies and climate protection? Do disasters first have to occur for gigantic financial aid to be provided or must financial policy be fundamentally and proactively changed? How can financial policy become proactive? The episode, which you can watch here, deals with these and many other questions.

Prosperity for all

In the podcast Prosperity for All, Joscha Wullweber talks to Ole Nymoen about the role of central banks, the understanding of money as a political construct, the power of shadow banks and the role of government. Listen to the podcast here.