Prof. Dr. Bernhard Zangl

Short Bio

Bernhard Zangl is Professor of “Global Governance and Public Policy” at LMU Munich. In his teaching as well as in his research he focuses on international institutions. He studies, among other things, their adjustments to global power shifts as well as the dynamics of indirect governance and the blame games played in international institutions. He is also interested in loyalty in politics.

Bernhard Zangl holds a MA from the University of Tübingen and a PhD from the University of Bremen. Before moving to Munich in 2009, he was a Professor of International Relations at the University of Bremen. He also held visiting positions at Harvard University, the European University Institute, Northwestern University, and the Berlin Social Science Center. His research was published in the Annual Review of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Organizations, Journal of European Public Policy, among others. His most recent book published together with Berthold Rittberger, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild and Lisa Kriegmair studies “The Blame Games EU Actors Play”. Published with Oxford University Press this book specifies the conditions under which public blame attributions predominantly target specific EU bodies such as the Commission (scapegoat games) or specific member state governments (renegade games); and it also studies the conditions under which public blame attributions remain rather untargeted and thus diffuse (diffusion games).

Selected Publications

Books

• European Blame Games. Where Does the Buck Stop? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024 (with Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Berthold Rittberger & Lisa Kriegmair)
• The Governor’s Dilemma. Indirect Governance Beyond Principals and Agents, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020 (edited with Kenneth Abbott, Philipp Genschel and Duncan Snidal).
• Global Power Shifts: How Do International Institutions Adjust? Special Issue of Global Policy, 2020 (edited with Andreas Kruck).
• International Organizations as Orchestrators, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015 (edited with Kenneth Abbott, Philipp Genschel and Duncan Snidal).

Articles

• It Pays to be Generous: How Cooptation Transforms Power Rivalries, in: Contemporary Security Policy 2025 (with Andreas Kruck).
• Cooptation in Great Power Rivalries: A Conceptual Framework, in: Contemporary Security Policy 2025 (with Gadi Heimann, Deganit Paikowsky, Andreas Kruck). 
• The Politics of IO Authority Transfers: Explaining Informal Internationalisation and Unilateral Renationalisation, in: Journal of European Public Policy 2024 (with Christian Kreuder-Sonnen) https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2024.2325008

• No Place to Hide: The Public Attribution of Responsibility for Policy Failures of International Organizations. In: Review of International Studies, 2024. Online first (with Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Juliane Glovania, and Louisa Klein-Bölting). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210524000330 
• The Cooptation Dilemma: Explaining US Contestation of the Liberal Trade Order. In: Global Studies Quarterly 4:2, 2024, 1-12 (with Tim Heinkelmann-Wild and Andreas Kruck). https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksae024 
• Blame Shifting and Blame Obfuscation: The Blame Avoidance Effects of Delegation in the European Union, in: European Journal of Political Research 62:1, 2023, 221-238 (with Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Berthold Rittberger and Lisa Kriegmair).
• Dolce far Niente? Non-compliance and Blame Avoidance in the EU, in: West European Politics 45:5, 2022, 1153-1174 (with Lisa Kriegmair, Berthold Rittberger, and Tim Heinkelmann-Wild).
• Beyond Opportunism: Intermediary Loyalty in Regulation and Governance, in: Regulation and Governance 15, 2021, 83-101 (with Kenneth Abbott, Philipp Genschel and Duncan Snidal).
• India’s Recognition as a Nuclear Power: A Case of Strategic Cooptation, in: Contemporary Security Policy 42:4, 2021, 530-553 (with Andreas Kruck and Patrick Frankenbach).
• Divided they Fail: The Politics of Wedge Issues and Brexit, in: Journal of European Public Policy 27:5, 2020, 723-741 (with Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Lisa Kriegmair, and Berthold Rittberger).
• Multi-level Blame Games. Blame-shifting in the EU, in: Governance 33:4, 2020, 953-969 (with Tim Heinkelmann-Wild).
• Competence versus Control. The Governor’s Dilemma, in: Regulation and Governance 14:4, 2020, 619-636 (with Kenneth Abbott, Philipp Genschel and Duncan Snidal).
• Trading Privileges for Support: The Strategic Co-optation of Emerging Powers into International Institutions, in: International Theory, 11, 2019, 318–343 (with Andreas Kruck).
• Interactions between Hard and Soft Power: The Institutional Adaptation of International Intellectual Property Protection to Global Power Shifts, in: European Journal of International Relations 25:2, 2019, 588-612 (with Benjamin Daßler and Andreas Kruck).
• Where does the Buck Stop? Explaining Responsibility Attributions in Complex International Institutions, in: Journal of Common Market Studies 55:4, 2017, 909-924 (with Berthold Rittberger and Helena Schwarzenbeck).
• Imperfect Adaptation. How the WTO and the IMF Adjust to Shifting Power Distributions among their Members, in: The Review of International Organization 11:2, 2016, 171-196 (with Frederick Heussner, Xenia Lanzendörfer and Andreas Kruck).
• Two Logics of Indirect Governance. Delegation and Orchestration, in: British Journal of Political Science 46:4, 2016, 719-729 (with Kenneth Abbott, Philipp Genschel and Duncan Snidal).
• Which Post-Westphalia? International Organizations between Constitutionalism and Authoritarianism, in: European Journal of International Relations 21:3, 2015, 568-594 (with Christian Kreuder-Sonnen).
• State Transformations in OECD Countries. Towards the State as a Manager of Political Authority, in: Annual Review of Political Science 17, 2014, 337-354 (with Philipp Genschel).
• The Politicization of International Economic Institutions in US Public Debates, in: The Review of International Organization 8:3, 2013, 363-387 (with Thomas Rixen).
• Between Law and Politics. Explaining International Dispute Settlement Behavior, in: European Journal of International Relations 18:2, 2012, 369-401 (with Achim Helmedach, Aletta Mondré, Gerald Neubauer, Kerstin Blome and Alexander Kocks).
• Judicialization Matters! A Comparison of Dispute Settlement under GATT and the WTO, in: International Studies Quarterly 52:4, 2008, 825-854.
• The European Economic and Monetary Union. Two-level Games and the Formation of Inter¬national Institutions, in: European Journal of International Relations 2:3, 1996, 355-393 (with Dieter Wolf).

Supervision of BA, MA and PhD Theses

If you would like to write your BA thesis under my supervision, please read and follow these guidelines:

• Information on the procedure for BA theses (general GSI Homepage)
• How to write an "Exposé"

If you would like to write your MA thesis under my supervision, please read and follow these guidelines:

• Information on the application process, see information on general GSI homepage
• How to write an "Exposé"

If you would like to write your PhD thesis under my supervision, please read and follow these guidelines:

• Information for doctoral students