Prof. Dr. Michael Brzoska

Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy
Research Group Climate Change and Security
Cluster of Excellence CliSAP
Universität Hamburg

Michael Brzoska, born in 1953, studied economics and political science at the Universities of Hamburg and Fribourg (Switzerland), completing with a Diploma in Economics. PhD in Political Science (University of Hamburg) in 1985 with a dissertation on the arms export policies of the social-liberal coalition 1969 to 1982 and habilitation on the subject of “Militarization of the Third World as a problem of International Politics”, 1997.

Scientific Director of the IFSH from February 2006 to September 2016. From 1994 until January 2006 Director of Research an the Bonn International Center for Conversion, Bonn Germany.1988 to 1994 Lecturer (Hochschulassistent) at the International Relations subsection, Institute for Political Science, University of Hamburg, and Researcher and Project Leader at the Unit for the Study of Armaments, Development and Wars, Institute for Political Science, University of Hamburg 1983-86 research member and codirector of the Arms Trade and Arms Production Team at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Solna, Sweden. Research assistant at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in the early 1980s, research assistant at the German Africa Institute, Hamburg, in the late 1970s.

Michael Brzoska's main research interests are arms control and disarmament, targeted sanctions and sanction reform, economic actors in internal armed conflicts, Europeanization of arms production, international arms transfers, security sector reform; conflict research, global arms industry.

Current projects include work on

• Environmental change and armed conflict
• Securitization of climate change
• Civilian and military instruments of the European Foreign and Security Policy
• International arms embargoes
• Conventional arms control
• European arms export policies
• Security sector reform in transition and developing countries
• Conceptions of security

Further information can be found here.

Selected publications

M. Brzoska (2008): Der konfliktträchtige Klimawandel – ein Sicherheitsproblem?, Friedensgutachten 2008, Münster, LIT Verlag,  pp. 195-207.   online

M. Brzoska (2009): The Securitzation of Climate Change and the Power of Conceptions of Security, Sicherheit und Frieden, 27 (3), pp. 137-145.   online

Supervision of theses

Denise Völker:
Konfliktfaktor Waldschutz? – Analyse von Auswirkungen von Waldschutzmaßnahmen auf Konfliktformationen in ausgewählten Regionen des Amazonasbeckens,
dissertation in progress

Andreas Bernath:
The Impact of Climate Change on Population Movements and Conflict,
dissertation in progress