Dr. des. Tim Heinkelmann-Wild

Short Bio

Tim Heinkelmann-Wild is a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute of Political Science. His doctoral project “After Exit: Alternative Leadership and Institutional Resilience after Hegemonic Withdrawal” was awarded “summa cum laude” honors at LMU Munich in 2024 and was supported by scholarships from the German National Academic Foundation (“Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes”) and the Marianne-Plehn-Programme of the Elite Network of Bavaria. Tim Heinkelmann-Wild was a junior visiting fellow at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield College and the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) in 2021/22. He studied Political Science, History, and Philosophy at LMU Munich, receiving scholarships from the German National Academic Foundation and the “Deutschlandstipendium”. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History in 2015 and a Master’s degree in Political Science in 2018, both times top of his year. Tim Heinkelmann-Wild also gained policy-related experience in international politics, for example through internships at the German Foreign Office’s headquarters in Berlin (Task Force Ukraine) and its Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, as well as at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). He is a member of the German National Academic Foundation’s selection committee and the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). Tim Heinkelmann-Wild participates in the Ment15 Mentoring program for female doctoral candidates and students at the Faculty of Social Sciences (the call for new mentees opens every summer).

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Research interests

• Institutional contestation by established powers: A first strand of research focuses on the contestation of international institutions by traditionally supportive established powers. In his doctoral project “After Exit – Leadership Transition and Institutional Resilience after Hegemonic Withdrawal”, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild explored why some institutions are resilient to the withdrawal of US support while others decay or even fail. Related research projects aim at a better understanding of the drivers, frames, modes, consequences, and responses to the contestation of international institutions by great powers as well as the afterlives of IOs.
• IO blame games: A second area of research comprises blame games that arise once the policies of IOs, such as the EU, the IMF, or the WHO become publicly contested. As a research fellow in the DFG project “Public Responsibility Attribution in the European Union”, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild studies who is held responsible in European blame games as well as the blame avoidance strategies of IO bureaucracies and member state governments.
• Indirect warfare: A third research interest constitutes states’ external intervention in conflicts by supporting violent non-state actors. This strand of research unpacks why states sometimes retain “hands-on” control over their intermediaries (conflict delegation) or sacrifice control at other times (conflict orchestration) and explores the effects of these different modes of external support on sanctions, atrocities, and conflict intensity.

Books

• After Exit: Alternative Leadership and Institutional Resilience after Hegemonic Withdrawal (unpublished manuscript)
• 2024: European Blame Games: Where does the Buck stop? Oxford University Press (with Berthold Rittberger, Bernhard Zangl, and Lisa Kriegmair). https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192870636.001.0001

Journal articles

• 2024: Insuring the Weak: The Institutional Power Equilibrium in International Organizations. In: International Studies Quarterly (with Benjamin Daßler and Martijn Huysmans). https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae146 
• 2024: How Negative Institutional Power Moderates Contestation: Explaining Dissatisfied Powers’ Strategies towards International Institutions. In: Review of International Organizations (with Benjamin Daßler and Andreas Kruck). Online first. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-024-09574-z
• 2024: No Place to Hide: The Public Attribution of Responsibility for Policy Failures of International Organizations. In: Review of International Studies. Online first (with Bernhard Zangl, Juliane Glovania, and Louisa Klein-Bölting). Online first. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210524000330
• 2024: The Cooptation Dilemma: Explaining US Contestation of the Liberal Trade Order. In: Global Studies Quarterly 4:2, 1-12 (with Andreas Kruck and Bernhard Zangl). https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksae024 
• 2024: Governance abhors a Vacuum: The Afterlives of Major International Organisations. In: British Journal of Politics and International Relations 26:3, 759–778 (with Hylke Dijkstra and Maria Debre). https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481231202642
• 2023: Blame Shifting and Blame Obfuscation: The Blame Avoidance Effects of Delegation in the EU. In: European Journal of Political Research 62:1, 221-238 (with Bernhard Zangl, Berthold Rittberger, and Lisa Kriegmair). https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12503 
• 2022: Wann eskalieren westliche Mächte institutionelle Kontestation? Interne Kontrolle, externe Effekte und Modi der Kontestation internationaler Institutionen. [When do Western Powers Escalate Institutional Contestation? Internal Control, External Effects, and Modes of Contestation of International Institutions.] In: Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 29:1, 6-31 (with Benjamin Daßler and Andreas Kruck). https://doi.org/10.5771/0946-7165-2022-1-6
• 2022: Dolce far niente? Non-compliance and blame avoidance in the EU. In: West European Politics 45:5, 1153-1174 (with Lisa Kriegmair, Berthold Rittberger, and Bernhard Zangl). https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2021.1909938 
• 2022: To Yield or Shield? Comparing International Public Administrations’ Responses to Member States’ Policy Contestation. In: Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 24:3, 296-312 (with Vytautas Jankauskas). https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2020.1822144 
• 2022: Disentangling Institutional Contestation by Established Powers: Types of Contestation Frames and Varying Opportunities for the Re-Legitimation of International Institutions. In: Global Constitutionalism 11:2, 344-368. (with Andreas Kruck, Benjamin Daßler, and Raphaela Hobbach). https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381722000053
• 2022: Indirect Governance at War: Delegation and Orchestration in Rebel Support. In: Journal of Conflict Resolution 66:1, 115-143 (with Marius Mehrl). https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027211027311
• 2020: Nicht nur wehrlose Sündenböcke! Schuldvermeidungsstrategien internationaler Organisationen [No Defenseless Scapegoats! Blame Avoidance Strategies of International Organizations]. In: Politische Vierteljahresschrift/German Political Science Quarterly 61:4, 725-746 (with Bernhard Zangl). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-020-00255-1

• 2020: Disarmed Principals: Institutional Resilience and the Non-Enforcement of Delegation. In: European Political Science Review 12:4, 409-425 (with Moritz Weiss). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773920000181 
• 2020: Divided They Fail: The Politics of Wedge Issues and Brexit. In: Journal of European Public Policy 27:5, 723-741 (with Lisa Kriegmair, Berthold Rittberger, and Bernhard Zangl). https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2019.1683058 
• 2020: The EU Multi-level System and the Europeanization of Domestic Blame Games. In: Politics and Governance 8:1, 85-94 (with Lisa Kriegmair and Berthold Rittberger). http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/pag.v8i1.2522 
• 2020: Multilevel Blame Games: Blame-shifting in the European Union. In: Governance 33:4, 953-969 (with Bernhard Zangl). https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12459
• 2019: Heroes Welcome! An Exceptional Story of “Good” Refugees in the German Tabloid Discourse. In: Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 14:3, 220–239 (with Daniel Beck and Alexander Spencer). https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2019.1649412

Book chapters

• 2024: Varieties of European Blame Games: On Scapegoat, Renegade, and Diffusion Games. In: Flinders, Matthew/Dimova, Gergana/Hinterleitner, Markus/Rhodes, R. A. W./Weaver, Kent (ed.): The Politics and Governance of Blame. Oxford University Press (with Berthold Rittberger, Bernhard Zangl, and Lisa Kriegmair). https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-politics-and-governance-of-blame-9780198896388
• 2023: Eine Krise liberaler Hegemonie: Die Trump-Administration und die Kontestation der Liberalen Internationalen Ordnung. In: Böller, Florian/Werner, Welf (eds.): Hegemonialer Wandel. Globale Wirtschafts- und Sicherheitsordnungen in der Ära Trump. Hamburg/Berlin: J.B. Metzler, 77-96 [translation] (with Andreas Kruck and Benjamin Daßler). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35003-0_4 
• 2021: A Crisis from Within: The Trump Administration and the Contestation of the Liberal International Order. In: Böller, Florian/Werner, Welf (eds.): A Hegemonic Transition? Reconfigurations of Global Economic and Security Orders in the Age of Trump. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 69-86 (with Andreas Kruck and Benjamin Daßler). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74505-9_4
• 2021: Divided They Fail: The Politics of Wedge Issues and Brexit. In: Richardson, Jeremy/Rittberger, Berthold (ed.): The Brexit Policy Fiasco. London: Routledge, 75-93 [reprint] (with Lisa Kriegmair, Berthold Rittberger, and Bernhard Zangl). 978-0367748906
• 2018: The European Blame Game: Explaining Public Responsibility Attributions in the European Union.
 In: Kruck, Andreas/Oppermann, Kai/Spencer, Alexander (eds.): Political Mistakes and Policy Failures in International Relations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 171-189 (with Berthold Rittberger and Bernhard Zangl). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68173-3_8

Public outreach: opinion pieces, interviews and other publications

• Winter 2024/25: International Organizations in the Public
• Winter 2024/25: Basic Course International Relations
• Summer 2024: Final theses supervision seminar
• Summer 2024: The Contestation of International Organizations: Challenges, Responses, and Consequences
• Winter 2023/24: International Organizations and Blame Games
• Winter 2023/24: Research Design
• Summer 2023: Global Power Shifts and Transnational Problems: What Role Remains for International Organizations? Summer Academy of the German National Academic Foundation, Vienna (with Vytautas Jankauskas)
• Winter 2022/23: International Organizations and Blame Games, Charles University, Prague.
• Winter 2020/21: Research Design
• Winter 2020/21: Basic Course International Relations
• Summer 2020: Hegemonic Decline and the Crisis of International Institutions (with Benjamin Daßler)
• Winter 2018/2019: Research Design (with Benjamin Daßler)
• Winter 2018/2019: War, Peace, Cooperation – Theory Applications in International Relations
• Summer 2018: War, Peace, Cooperation – Theory Applications in International Relations
• Winter 2017/2018: Tutorium for the Basic Course International Relations