Prof. Dr. Frank Schimmelfennig

Biography

Frank Schimmelfennig joined ETH as Full Professor of European Politics in 2005. His team is part of the Center of Comparative and International Studies of ETH and the University of Zurich. Born in Germany in 1963, Frank Schimmelfennig studied Political Science and History in Mainz, Dijon, Tübingen and at Tufts University, Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy (Medford, Mass., USA). He holds a doctoral degree from the University of Tübingen (1995) and a Habilitation degree from Darmstadt University of Technology (2001). His thesis, "The EU, NATO and the Integration of Europe. Rules and Rhetoric", was published in 2003 by Cambridge University Press and received the Best Book Award for 2003 and 2004 of the European Union Studies Association. He was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy (2001-02) and a Senior Research Fellow of the Mannheim Center for European Social Research, Germany (2002-05). Frank Schimmelfennig's research and teaching focus on theories and processes of European political integration. His research projects focus on the enlargement of European regional organizations, the "Europeanization" of transformation countries, differentiated integration in the EU, EU democracy promotion, and processes of democratization and parliamentarization within the EU and other international organizations. His articles have been published, inter alia, in Comparative Political Studies, Cooperation and Conflict, European Journal of International Relations, European Union Politics, International Organization, Journal of Common Market Studies, and Journal of European Public Policy. Further book publications include "The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe" (Cornell University Press 2005, ed. with Ulrich Sedelmeier), "International Socialization in Europe. European Organizations, Political Conditionality, and Democratic Change" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, with Stefan Engert and Heiko Knobel) and "Differentiated Integration. Explaining Variety in the European Union" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, with Dirk Leuffen and Berthold Rittberger).

Research Interest

Democracy promotion, democratization of international organizations, European integration: differentiation, enlargement, parliamentarization