Guest Researcher: Kilian Spandler

Dr. Kilian Spandler is an International Relations researcher focusing on the possibility and legitimacy of global governance in an increasingly plural world. He has expertise on the role of regions in global governance, especially with regard to Europe and Asia.

Kilian obtained his PhD from the University of Tübingen, Germany, in 2016. In his doctoral dissertation, he analyzed and compared the processes of normative arguing surrounding the organizational evolution of the EU and ASEAN. He then worked as a Visiting Lecturer in International Relations at the Universities of Würzburg and Freiburg until mid-2017, before joining the School of Global Studies as a visiting post-doctoral researcher.

His research project, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), is concerned with the legitimization of security cooperation between the UN and regional organizations. For this purpose, he will conduct extensive field research at international organizations across the globe. Fredrik Söderbaum is his academic mentor for the project. Kilian will also continue working on several research collaborations which deal with the connection between international norms and organizations as well as the normative implications of international norm ambiguity.

Besides these more academic undertakings, Kilian is an advocate of making young voices heard in International Relations. He is a board member of the Young Initiative on Foreign Affairs and International Relations, a platform for transnational projects launched by students and young professionals. Within IFAIR, he also founded the EU-ASEAN Perspectives Dialogue, in which participants from Europe and Southeast Asia develop recommendations for policy-makers in the two regions.