Dr. Rouven Symank is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence. In Fall 2025, he will join Harvard University as a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow.

His research integrates political theory with qualitative methods to examine questions of solidarity, justice, and the challenges facing liberal democracy. His most recent work was published in the American Political Science Review(APSR).

He holds a Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI), an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics (LSE), and an M.A. from Humboldt University of Berlin. He has held visiting research positions at the University of Oxford, Sciences Po Paris, and the University of California, Berkeley.

His fieldwork in Senegal, Namibia, and Mexico brings a grounded perspective to his conceptual research. Beyond academia, he has gained professional experience in management consulting and public policy, including as a Carlo-Schmid Fellow at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in New York.

He has been awarded a Dahrendorf Fellowship at St Antony’s College, Oxford and the EUI, the Charles V European Award Research Grant, and scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Service and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung).

At SCRIPTS, he contributes to the project Objects from Afar and Sustainable Liberal Identity. Together with Prof. Philipp Lepenies, he recently organized an international workshop and is currently serving as lead editor of a peer-reviewed special issue based on its contributions.

He is also Principal Investigator, alongside Dr. Alexandra Paulin-Booth, of the Berlin University Alliance-funded project The Restitution Think Tank. He is currently preparing a book manuscript on the political dimensions of cultural restitution, exploring how the return of looted artifacts reflects shifting international norms and evolving conceptions of global justice.

Research interests

• Solidarity and Justice
• Cultural Heritage and Global Politics
• International Norms and Institutions
• European Integration and Transnational Governance
• Modern and Contemporary Political Thought
• Comparative Political and Social Theory
• Normative Political Analysis
• Qualitative Methods

Current Research Projects at SCRIPTS

Objects from Afar and Sustainable Liberal Identity - The Contestation of Material Representation in National Museums of the Global North

Peer Reviewed

• 2024. Durkheim’s Empire: The Concept of Solidarity and Its Colonial Dimension”. America Political Science Review, 1-14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055424001023.

Books

• Léon Bourgeois’s Solidarity – Editor and Translator. Book under contract with Palgrave US. 

Peer Reviewed Special Issues

• Forthcoming 2024. "The Principle of Solidarity in the European Union." In Special Issue of the Charles V European Award Research Grant, edited by Éric Bussière and Enrique Moradiellos García.

Edited Volumes

• 2023. "Solidarität als soziale Schuld: Zur Aktualität des Solidarismus in konzeptgeschichtlicher und postkolonialer Perspektive." In Umstrittene Solidarität, edited by Maren Schüll, Alfred Schäfer, and Ralf Mayer. Bielefeld: Transcript. Available at: https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839464656-006.
• 2025. “The Principle of Solidarity in the European Union”. In La Unión Europea y el Principio de Solidaridad, edited by Teresa Freixes Sanjuán, and Juan C. Moreno Piñero, pp. 77-92. Cuadernos de Yuste: Extremadura.

Research Papers

• 2022. Kalypso Nicolaïdis in collaboration with Adrien Bradley, Stefano Merlo, Pablo Puertas Roig, Rouven Symank. Differentiation, Dominance and Democratic Congruence: A Relational View. EU3D Research Paper No. 21, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4000968.
• 2017. A ‘Global Crackdown on Civil Society’? Assessing the Accreditation Practice of the United Nations Committee on NGOs. United Nations NGO Branch, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Available at: http://csonet.org/content/documents/Symank_Global%20Crackdown%20on%20Civil%20Society.pdf.

Dissertation

• 2023. On Solidarity: Its Origins, Legacy, and Critique in Social and Political Thought, Florence: European University Institute, 2023, EUI PhD theses, Department of Political and Social Sciences. Available from: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/75593.