Ulrich Brand


Ulrich Brand is a German political scientist. Since September 2007 he is a Professor of International Politics at the University of Vienna.

Biography

In 1989, Ulrich Brand graduated from Business Administration Studies with a specialisation in Tourism at the Berufsakademie Ravensburg with a Diploma. Between 1989 and 1996 he studied Political science at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main and at the Universidad de Belgrano as well as at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, finishing his studies also with a Diploma. In 2000, Ulrich Brand completed his PhD in Political Science at Goethe University. Between 2001 and 2007 he worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Kassel in the Area "Globalisation and Politics". In 2006, Brand qualified with a Habilitation as a University Lecturer with his thesis Die politische Form der Globalisierung. Soziale Kräfte und Institutionen im internationalisierten Staat.
Ulrich Brand is a member of the Board of Trustees of the "Institut Solidarische Moderne", the "Bundeskoordination Internationalismus " and the Scientific Advisory Board of the network "Attac" in Germany. Since 2011, he is Co-Editor of "Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik", a monthly journal on topical political and economic issues published in Germany. Ulrich Brand is also member of the "Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft", "Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft" and co-founder and member of "Assoziation für kritische Gesellschaftsforschung". He is member of the Permanent Working Group "Alternatives to Development" that exists since 2011 and meets once a year in an Andean country.
Between 2012 and 2014 he was the Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna, between 2016 and 2018 Deputy Head of the Department. Between 2011 and 2013 he was the Academic Director of the Master Study Programme "Interdisciplinary Latin American Studies". Currently, he is the Academic Director of the Master Study Programme "Global Political Economy of Sustainable Development" that starts in spring 2018.
Ulrich Brand is a reviewer for: Antipode, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Environment & Planning C: Government & Policy, Environmental Politics, Environmental Values, Global Environmental Politics, Globalizations,, Review of International Political Economy, Review of Ecological Economics, Peripherie. Zeitschrift für Politik und Ökonomie in der Dritten Welt, Third World Quarterly, and Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen.

Research

Brand's main research interests are the crisis of liberal globalisation and the internationalisation of the state, social-ecological topics like resource politics and Green Economy, critical state and governance studies and Latin America. His theoretical work is part of discussions about critical state and hegemony theory, regulation theory and political ecology. He has been working on a "historical-materialist policy analysis" for many years to combine different forms of policy analysis with materialist appriaches. Recently, he led a research project on trade unions and social-ecological transformation.
Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen introduced the concept of the "imperial mode of living".
This concept refers to dominant patterns of production, distribution, and consumption that are deeply rooted in the everyday practices of the upper and middle classes of the global North, and increasingly in the emerging countries of the global South. The term attempts to answer the question how the specific mode of living in the Global North has caused diverse crisis phenomena but at the same time is globally attractive.
In times of a ‘multiple crises’, the imperial mode of living contributes to securing social stability in the Global North. The negative consequences of the crises, especially in terms of ecology, are not noticeable yet, apart from weather extremes. At the same time, the imperial mode of living provides for a hegemonic orientation in many societies of the Global South. Beyond that, Brand and Wissen do research on the possibility of an alternative, "solidary", mode of living that has been appearing e.g. in struggles for energy democracy or food sovereignty and paves the way for a fundamental socio-ecological transformation.

Published books (selected)