Multi-Layered Governance and Models of Democracy

Political Science (MLG): Prof. dr. Frank Biermann

Frank Biermann specializes in research, teaching and research management with a focus on governance and institutions for sustainable development. He is interested, in particular, in the role of non-state actors in environmental governance, especially of international bureaucracies and scientific networks; in the influence of public-private and private co-operation in environmental governance; in the interplay of global institutions, notably of the trade regime with environmental regimes; in the distributive effects of environmental regimes; and in the development of a long-term stable climate governance architecture. His most recent research focus has been the development of a theory of earth system governance as a crosscutting concept in the study of global change. Since 2003 Biermann heads the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the VU University Amsterdam. 

The Department of Political Science is currently building on closer cooperation with the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis (EPA) led by Prof. Biermann at the IVM, with regard to developing collaborative research projects and co-authored publications as well. To that effect the department has also appointed Philipp Pattberg of the IVM on a part time basis. Prof. Biermann and Dr. Pattberg also teach components of the Bachelor's and Master's programmes in political science and are part of the thematic research cluster Multi-Layered Governance and Models of Democracy.