Dr. Benjamin Daßler

Benjamin is a post-doctoral researcher and principal investigator of the DFG funded project The Politics of Contender Institutions (POLCON) at the Chair of Global Governance and Public Policy at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Political Science. His research focuses on international regime complexity, the contestation of international organisations and institutional change in the context of power transitions. In his research, he applies a broad spectrum of methods, ranging from qualitative case studies and network analyses to experimental methods and quantitative regression analyses.

Since April 2024, Benjamin has been leading the three-year research project POLCON funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). POLCON takes a comprehensive, cross-policy approach, analyzing the politics of contender institutions in regime complexes across time and space. For more information and recent project-related publications, please visit the project homepage.

Recent publications

2025 "Beyond the European Army Illusion: A Prudent Strategy for the Real European Zeitenwende" (with Moritz Weiss). JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies. Available open access at https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.70029 

2025 "Politics of de-risking: how the EU confronts vulnerabilities in critical digital infrastructures" Journal of European Public Policy (JEPP) (with Sandra Bandemer, Berthold Rittberger, Moritz Weiss & Kathrin Will). Available open access at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13501763.2025.2545305es 

2025 "Insuring the Weak: The Institutional Power Equilibrium in International Organizations" International Studies Quarterly, Volume 69, Issue 1 (with Tim Heinkelmann-Wild & Martijn Huysmans), Available open access: https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae146

2024 "The Institutional Topology of International Regime Complexes - Mapping Inter-Institutional Structures in Global Governance" Oxford University Press (OUP). Available at: https://academic.oup.com/book/55135  

2024 "How negative institutional power moderates contestation: Explaining dissatisfied powers’ strategies towards international institutions" The Review of International Organizations (RIO) (with Tim Heinkelmann-Wild & Andreas Kruck. Available open access: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-024-09574-z 

2024 "Navigating Regime Complexes in Turbulent Times—The EU’s Interaction with Other International Organizations in Crises". German Political Science Quarterly (PVS) (with Sandra Bandemer, Berthold Rittberger, and Moritz Weiss). Available open access: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11615-024-00572-9 

2024 "The Contender’s Momentum? COVID-19 and IO relations in the regime complex of financial assistance. The Chinese Journal of International Politics (CJIP) (with Felix Biermann),Volume 17, Issue 4, 2024, Pages 346–378, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poae018 . Available at: https://academic.oup.com/cjip/article/17/4/346/7721600?login=true  

2024 "Is there a religious bias? Attitudes towards Military Humanitarian Intervention in Germany." Available Open Access at the European Journal of International Security (EJIS) (with Bernhard Zangl and Hilde van Meegdenburg).