Office hours: appointment by e-mail
Short biography
Prof. Dr. Julian Germann is Visiting Professor in the research group International and Intersocietal Relations at the University of Kassel and Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex. His research addresses the political economy of the high-technology and raw-materials rivalry between the United States, Europe and China, which is increasingly waged through transnational corporate networks and is reshaping development trajectories and state–society relations worldwide. At the University of Sussex he is Director of Research in the Department of International Relations and previously led the Centre for Global Political Economy. His applied research on geoeconomic risks and social-ecological standards in global supply chains is carried out in close collaboration with civil-society organisations such as the Transnational Institute, Greenpeace and the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
Main areas of research
• Geopolitics and geoeconomics
• Corporate power and global production networks
• Raw-materials, technology and industrial policy
• Social-ecological, digital and defence-industrial transformation
• Historical sociology of international orders
Regional focus: Europe/Germany, the United States and China
Recent Publications
Books
- Germann, J. (2021). Unwitting Architect: German Primacy and the Origins of Neoliberalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=31036
Articles
- Baines, J., Germann, J., Rolf, S. & Starrs, S. (2026). Which Side Are You On? Geoeconomic Coercion and German Corporate Networks in the US–China Rivalry. Review of International Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2026.2622519
- Rolf, S., Baines, J. & Germann, J. (2026). The Spatial Limits to Weaponizing Interdependence: TSMC and Territorial Embeddedness in the US–China Tech Conflict. Economy & Society. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00130095.2026.2689124
- Germann, J., Baines, J., Rolf, S. & Starrs, S. (im Druck). Globalized but Divided: European Corporations and the EU’s Geoeconomic Turn Against China. New Political Economy.
- Germann, J., Rolf, S., Baines, J. & Starrs, S. (2024). A Chip War Made in Germany? US Techno-Dependencies, China Chokepoints, and the German Semiconductor Industry. Politics and Governance 32(2): 115–132. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.8265
- Rolf, S., Baines, J., Germann, J. & Starrs, S. (2024). The Geographies and Geopolitics of Industrial Policy: Designing a Data-Driven UK Semiconductor Strategy. European Urban and Regional Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/09697764241303838
- Germann, J. (2023). Global Rivalries, Corporate Interests and Germany’s National Industrial Strategy 2030. Review of International Political Economy 30(5): 1749–1775. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2022.2130958
- Germann, J. (2023). Wrestling with Unevenness: Sino-American Rivalry, State Strategy, and the Reformation of German Capitalism. Global Political Economy 2(1): 77–97. https://doi.org/10.1332/WDGH8153
- Starrs, S. & Germann, J. (2021). Responding to the China Challenge in Techno-Nationalism: Divergence between Germany and the United States. Development & Change 55(2): 1122–1146. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12683
Policy Reports
- Balmas, P., Rolf, S., Germann, J. & Baines, J. (2026). Semiconductor Supply Chain and Financial Network Analysis: Mobilising New Data Sources and Designing Risk Metrics. Digit Data Commentary (3. Juni). https://digit-research.org/insights/semiconductor-supply-chain-and-financial-network-analysis-mobilising-new-data-sources-and-designing-risk-metrics/
- Baines, J., Rolf, S., Germann, J. et al. (2025). The Cost of Clean Cars: Mapping Mining Harms in Europe’s EV Supply Chains. Joint Policy Brief (Transnational Institute, Resources Matters, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung u. a.). https://www.tni.org/en/publication/the-cost-of-clean-cars
- Baines, J., Germann, J., Rolf, S., Starrs, S. & Wirth, M. (2025). Tracing Austrian Corporate Footprints in the Global South: Data-Driven Due Diligence in Extractive Supply Chains. UAS BFI Vienna Working Paper Series 126. https://fhpub.fh-vie.ac.at/obvbfioa/download/pdf/12578571
- Rolf, S., Baines, J., Germann, J. et al. (2024). Niobium and the EU: Green Dreams or War Machines? Joint Policy Brief (Transnational Institute, Greenpeace Germany, Resource Matters). https://www.tni.org/en/publication/niobium-and-the-eu
- Rolf, S., Baines, J., Germann, J. & Starrs, S. (2024). Towards a Data-Driven UK Semiconductor Strategy. Digit Policy Reports. https://digit-research.org/insights/towards-a-data-driven-uk-semiconductor-strategy/
Research Projects
Director Junior Research Group: Global Change - Local Conflicts?
Conflicts over land in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa in times of global transformation,
together with Prof. Bettina Engels, Freie Universität Berlin. Duration: 2014-2019.
“Global change – local conflicts? Land conflicts in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa in the context of interdependent transformation processes” (GLOCON) is a Junior Research Group working on the correlation between global change and local conflicts over land. The research project explores how global spatial-temporal transformation processes affect local land conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Its focus lies furthermore on the analysis of systematic similarities and differences between those regions. GLOCON analyses and compares conflicts over land in a range of sub-Saharan and Latin American countries.
Homepage: www.land-conflicts.net
Co-director Junior Research Group: Fair Fuels?
Between dead end and energy transition: A social-ecological multilevel analysis of transnational biofuel policies,
Freie Universität Berlin. Duration: 2009-2013.
What are the socioeconomic impacts of biofuel production? To what extent can these fuels be produced and used in a socially and environmentally compatible way? Do they make an indispensable contribution to the energy transition or do they instead lead to a dead end? These questions are to be solved by Fair Fuels?, a junior research group funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Homepage: www.fair-fuels.de
