Department of Politics and International Studies

Dr Felix Berenskötter

Key information

Department
Department of Politics and International Studies
Qualifications
MA (Rutgers), PhD (LSE)
Building
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office
207
Email address
fb12@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
+44 (0) 207 898 4682
Support hours
On request

Biography

Felix Berenskötter is a scholar of International Relations with a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Before joining SOAS, he was a Research Associate at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, and a Research Fellow at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College. His work has been supported by grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Leverhulme Trust.

Felix was the founding chair of the Theory Section of the International Studies Association (ISA), co-convened the Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group of the British International Studies Association (BISA) and currently serves on the Governing Board of the European International Studies Association (EISA). He was an editor of Millennium: Journal of International Studies and part of the founding editorial team of The Journal of Global Security Studies (JoGSS). He founded and co-edits the book series Bristol Studies in International Theory (Bristol University Press) with Neta Crawford and Stefano Guzzini.

Felix served as Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS from July 2019 to January 2023, which included service at Executive Board and the Board of Trustees.

Research interests

Much of Felix’ work revolves around the question how we construct conceptual frameworks to understand and explain world politics. He is particularly interested in (i) the parameters of ‘deep theorising’ as a creative endeavour and accounts of political agency within it, and (ii) the analysis of concepts, including their places in history, their function as building blocks of theory, and how they guide political discourse and action.

Felix approaches these themes through an engagement with the concepts of power, identity, security, and the politics of the past and the future. Over the last decade, his main project has been to explore and advance a deeper understanding of international friendship, including its build-up and dissolution, as a distinct phenomenon of world politics. Felix traces these themes empirically by engaging issues of European security and Germany’s special relationships with other states, among other matters. For publications see also his profile at researchgate.net or academia.edu.

ORCID: 0000-0003-2284-5998

Scopus Author ID: 16743760400

PhD Supervision

Name Title
Taylor Kenzie Borowetz "Building postcolonial narratives of emancipation: Envisioning “struggle” as a constructive process"
Taylor Borowetz
Jung Chun Chang National Identity construction in Taiwan's political advertising
Paul Kaletsch The Recent Aftermath of "Unsuccessful" Contemporary East Asian Urban Student Protests?

Publications

Contact Felix