Janne Mende is a political scientist with a specialization in International Relations. The awardee of the Franz-Xaver-Kaufmann-Prize 2022 is Senior Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law since 2020. In her Research Group MAGGI (“The Multiplication of Authorities in Global Governance Institutions”) she analyzes the governance authority of state, inter-state and non-state actors in the United Nations and the European Union. She also heads DFG-funded projects in the issue area of business and human rights and was Research Associate at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva.

Prior to her time at the MPIL, she has held positions as deputy professor for Transnational Governance at the Technical University of Darmstadt (2019/20), project leader at the Institute for Political Sciences at the University of Giessen (2018-2020), postdoctoral fellow at the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences (2017/18) and postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Development and Decent Work at the University of Kassel (2014-2017).

Over the past years, she has held visiting positions at the WZB – Berlin Social Science Center, Research Unit Global Governance, the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University Duisburg-Essen, the School of Global Studies in Gothenburg, the Danish Institute for Human Rights in Copenhagen, the Research Centre Human Rights at the University of Vienna and the New School for Social Research in New York.

In her latest publication (utb 2021), she develops a contextual and normatively open universalism of human rights. Her habilitation thesis (Nomos 2020) discusses the constellation of global governance and human rights between and beyond the public and the private sphere. Her PhD thesis (Campus 2015; Rowman & Littlefield 2016) analyzes liberal and communitarian approaches to collective rights, discussing the chances and challenges of indigenous human rights to culture and identity in the United Nations. A previous study on universalism, cultural relativism and female genital mutilation/cutting was published in 2011 (Transcript).

Academic Degrees:

07/2018: Habilitation and Venia Legendi in Political Science, University of Kassel
05/2014: Dr. rer. soc. in Political Science, University of Giessen
05/2010: Magistra Artium in Political Science, Social Anthropology, Psychology, Free University Berlin