News

OFFICE HOURS
Please get in touch with Ms Nutzinger for an online or offline appointment (sekretariat.rittberger[at]gsi.uni-muenchen.de). 

THESIS SUPERVISION
If you want to write you BA/MA/PhD dissertation with me, please consult the updated "how to write a proposal" document in the Supervision section. Make sure to schedule a meeting to discuss your research plans,

Research news

Feb 2024
Two new papers on EU agency governance are out: "The European administrative space over time: mapping the formal independence of EU agencies" was published in Regulation & Governance (with Eva Ruffing, Martin Weinrich and Arndt Wonka). It recasts the agency independence-index from Wonka & Rittberger (WEP, 2010) and charts the development of EU agency independence across the full range of EU agencies over time. The second paper on 'The competence‐control dilemma and the institutional design of European Union agencies' appeared in Governance (also with Eva, Martin and Arndt) and advances Competence-Control-Theory by arguing and showing that the design of EU agencies does not necessarily reflect a trade-off between enhancing competence and ensuring control.

July 2023
Lara Waas and I have written a paper "The Berlin puzzle", published in the European Journal of Political Research,  in which we explain the German government's support for NGEU, a transnational fiscal-sharing instrument in  response to the Covid 19-pandemic. 

February 2023
I have written a report for the European Parliament's ECON committee on "Democratic control and legitimacy in the evolving EU economic governance framework."

​September 2022
If you are interested in the crisis of the liberal international order (LIO), this article, co-authored with Christian Kreuder-Sonnen-Sonnen, discuses one of the "homemade" sources of discontent. Many thanks to the Journal of International Relations and Development for publishing "The LIO’s growing democracy gap: an endogenous source of polity contestation" - and yes, when we first started presenting (and submitting) the piece in 2017, it was potentially an even more desirable commodity ;-) The good news (for us) is that we persevered and that you can read it for free!
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​January 2022
A comprehensively updated version of the 2013 book on "Differentiated Integration" is out now: "Integration and Differentiation in the European Union: Theory and Policies" - a new title and a new look, but same author team (Dirk Leuffen, Frank Schimmelfennig, Berthold Rittberger). From the blurb: "In this updated second edition, the authors introduce the most important theoretical approaches to European integration (intergovernmentalism, supranationalism, constructivism and postfunctionalism) and apply these to the trajectories of key EU policy areas – including the single market, monetary policy, foreign and security policy, and justice and home affairs. Arguing that no single theory offers a completely convincing explanation of integration and differentiation in the EU, the authors put forward a new analytical perspective for describing and explaining the institutions and policies of the EU and their development over time. Written by a team of prominent scholars in the field, this thought-provoking book provides a new synthesis of integration theory and an original way of thinking about what the EU is and how it works.

​September 2021
Mein neues Buch "Europäische Union. Politik, Institutionen, Krisen" ist beim C.H. Beck Verlag in der Reihe "C.H. Beck Wissen" erschienen. Worum geht's? "Die EU ist heute regelmäßig Gegenstand politischer Kontroversen. Der Brexit, die Euro- und Migrationskrise, aber auch die graduelle Erosion der Demokratie in Polen und Ungarn sind zu Chiffren eines zentralen Dilemmas europäischer Politik im 21. Jahrhundert geworden: Kann europäische Kooperation mit der vielerorts lauter werdenden Forderung nach demokratischer Selbstbestimmung und nationaler Eigenständigkeit in Einklang gebracht werden? Berthold Rittberger beschreibt die Funktionsweise der EU – und zeigt die Entwicklungen des europäischen Integrationsprozesses auf, die den Weg in dieses Dilemma geebnet haben." (Klappentext)
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May 2021
In a new article, published in West European Politics (together with Lisa Kriegmair, Bernhard Zangl and Tim Heinkelmann-Wild), we ask if and when non-compliance can be an effective blame avoidance strategy for governments when confronted with unpopular EU decisions. The article is open access.

April 2021
A new working paper with Carolyn Moser is now online. The CJEU has long been considered a steadfast advocate and engine of the constitutionalization of the EU. More recently, critical voices about the Court’s seemingly deferential stance on executive (crisis) governance have amplified among legal scholars and political scientists. We take issue with this claim and show that - depending on levels of politicization and prior juridification - the court pursues different jurisprudential strategies on issues of constitutional salience, ranging from the expansion of constitutionalization to its retreat in the EU’s internal and external security policies.

October 2020
Together with Stefan Jagdhuber, I wrote a chapter on "Flexible Union“ statt „Ever Closer Union“: Die EU, der Brexit und differenzierte Integration", which appeared in a volume edited by Andreas Grimmel "Die neue Europäische Union. Zwischen Integration und Desintegration (Nomos).

May 2020
Check out the JEPP Special Issue on "The Brexit Policy Fiasco", edited by Jeremy Richardson and myself. You can read our intro to the special issue here.

​February/March 2020
In a recent special issue of Politics and Governance, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Lisa Kriegmair, and I published a piece in which we explain when domestic blame games over contested policies take on a European dimension (hint: governments cannot always play duck-and-cover or shift blame 'upwards').

And if you are interested in EU regulation, Felix Biermann and I not only show the rather obvious - EU agencies and European regulatory networks co-exist in governing regulatory regimes - but we have a theory when, why and how this is done. So check out our work on "indirect governance triangles" in this pretty amazing book, published by the famous Ken Abbott, Duncan Snidal, Philipp Genschel and Bernhard Zangl.

January 2020
Nina Guérin and I published a paper in the Journal of European Integration on 'Are third states pulling the strings? The impact of domestic policy change on EU-third state cooperation'. Some free e-prints are available here.

November 2019
As part of the DFG-funded project "Responsibility Attribution in the EU", we published a piece explaining the Brexit-deadlock in the House of Commons under Theresa May's premiership: "Divided they fail: the politics of wedge issues and Brexit". 
Read also Lisa's and Tim's excellent summary of the article on the EUROPP blog: "Brexit and the tragedy of the Commons".

Juni 2019
Mein Plädoyer zur Rettung der Spitzenkandidaten-Idee infolge der EP Wahlen wurde von der FAZ in der Rubirk "Fremde Federn" abgedruckt.

Mai 2019
Die Europawahlen stehen vor der Türe: Bei ARD Alpha Demokratie habe ich als Studiogast bei einer Sendung zum Europäischen Parlament mitgewirkt. Die ganze Sendung gibt's in der BR Mediathek zum Nachschauen.

Februar 2019
"Nur keine Angst vor der Quote" - in einem Gastbeitrag für Die Zeit.Online argumentiere ich mit Prof. Jessica-Fortin-Rittberger, warum Frauenquoten in der Politik sinnvoll sind.

February 2018
The West European Politics special issue Secrecy in Europe, which I co-edited with Klaus H. Goetz (LMU), is now on early view. The collection features fantastic papers devoted to the study of secrecy in European politics across a wide range of EU and national settings and policy domains. While scholarship on political transparency is thriving, research on political secrecy has not kept apace. And that's unfortunate, since political secrecy is expanding, as a consequence of technological change, political crises, and internationalization. Political secrecy also poses fundamental challenges to democratic and accountable governance. These issues, and many more, are debated in the special issue, as well as in our introduction (which is open access!).

​January 2018
Together with collaborators from my research group, we published a piece in the Journal of European Public Policy, in which we compare the different reform dynamics and outcomes of EU-level initiatives in the context of the euro crisis and the refugee crisis. The article Political (non-)reform in the euro crisis and the refugee crisis: a liberal intergovernmentalist explanation can be accessed for free here on the publisher's website (the first 50 clicks are 'free').

April 2017
As co-editor of a political science journal (Journal of European Public Policy), I felt I needed to take a stand for academic freedom, which has come under attack, most recently with the purge and silencing of academics in Turkey, but also in Hungary, where the ruling Fidesz party has passed legislation with the not so subtle aim to shut down the Central European University (CEU). Liberal democracy is being gradually dismantled and squandered right in front of our own eyes at the centre of Europe. This is not a profound analysis of where we are or how we got there, but simply a statement to defend academic freedom.  

March 2017
Regulation & Governance has just published an exchange between Daniel Kelemen & Andrew Tarrant, sticking to their decidedly non-functionalist view of the creation of the "Eurocracy", and Michael Blauberger and myself. We defend our claim that functional and power-based explanations are not mutually exclusive to account for the creation and design of EU regulatory networks, but require the delineation of adequate scope conditions.

March 2017
Thomas Winzen has just published a fascinating book, published by Oxford University Press, on how national parliaments have reacted to the pressures of EU politics. In chapter 7, with I had the pleasure to co-author, we explore parliamentary reactions to the crisis-induced reforms of EMU.

​​​February 20017
Together with a group of 40+ researchers from all over Europe, I co-authored a paper in the Journal of European Public Policy exploring the effects of the "Spitzenkandidaten-Debate": "This time it’s different? Effects of the Eurovision Debate on young citizens and its consequence for EU democracy – evidence from a quasi-experiment in 24 countries", Thorsten Faas, one of the initiators of the study, has produced a video blog, which summarizes the main findings.

​Dezember 2016
Am 8. Dezember organisiert der IB-Lehrstuhl zusammen mit der Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung eine Tagung zum Thema "Die Spaltung Europas?" Vertreter aus Wissenschaft und Politik diskutieren in drei Panels einige der brennendsten Fragen der aktuellen Politik: Die Konsequenzen des Brexit, die Auswirkungen der "Flüchtlingskrise" auf die EU, die Rolle Deutschlands im krisengeschüttelten Europa. Bei Interesse bitte bis 5.12. bei der HSS anmelden (Infos dazu gibt es hier).

March 2016
Prior to the 2014 EP elections, EU citizens had the unprecedented opportunity to watch televised debates between the candidates running for Commission President. Check out my co-authored paper with Jürgen Maier and Thorsten Faas, published in Politics and Governance, on the impact of the "Eurovision Debate" on the attitudes of young voters. The text is open access.

Oktober 2015
Das PVS-Themenschwerpunktfeht Wandel oder Kontinuität? Die Bearbeitung der Krise durch die Europaforschung ist soeben erschienen.  Von Thomas Winzen und mir gibt's einen Beitrag zur Auswirkung der Krise auf den europäischen Parlamentarismus. Der einleitende Beitrag zum Themenschwerpunktheft von Frank Schimmelfennig und mir kann hier eingesehen werden.

June 2015
Our paper on how party recruitment procedures affect the nomination of female candidates in European Parliament elections has been published in the European Journal of Political Research.

April 2015
Jeremy Richardson's and Sonia Mazey's 'classic' European Union: Power and Policy-making is now out in its fourth edition. I have contributed to chapters on "The EU as a system of differentiated integration" (with Frank Schimmelfennig), "The EU's multilevel parliamentary system" (with Thomas Winzen) and "EU agencies" (with Arndt Wonka).

January 2015
Together with Jessica Fortin-Rittberger, I wrote a short piece in the LSE's EUROPP blog on the gender imbalance between the European Parliament and national parliaments.