Dr. Rouven Symank is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence. He holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI), an MSc from the London School of Economics (LSE), and an MA from Humboldt University of Berlin. From 2021 to 2022, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley. His latest paper is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review.

Rouven’s work has been awarded the Charles V European Award Research Grant and scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Service and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung). As part of his research, Rouven has conducted fieldwork in Senegal, Namibia, and Mexico. He was a Dahrendorf Fellow at St Anthony’s College, Oxford, and has gained work experience in management consulting and as a Carlo-Schmid Fellow at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in New York.

At SCRIPTS, Rouven works on the project “Objects from Afar and Sustainable Liberal Identity: The Contestation of Material Representation in National Museums of the Global North.” Together with Philipp Lepenies, he recently organized a two-day international workshop and is currently overseeing the publication of the contributing papers in a peer-reviewed special issue. Rouven is also preparing a book manuscript titled “Object Diplomacy: The Politics of Cultural Restitution.”

Research interests

• Contemporary Political and Social Theory
• Sustainability and Material Culture in Liberal Democracies
• Postcolonial Thought in Relation to Political Theory
• Contemporary Challenges in European Politics and Society
• History of Social and Political Thought (19th and 20th Century)
  

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

• “Durkheim’s Empire: The Concept of Solidarity and Its Colonial Dimension”. AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW. Accepted for Publication.

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 from: https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839464656-006.

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 from: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4000968 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.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 from: 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.