Team

Claudia Wiesner is Jean Monnet Chair and Professor of Political Science at Fulda University of Applied Sciences, as well as adjunct Professor in Political Science at Jyväskylä University (Finland). She has also been Acting Professor at Hamburg, Bochum and Marburg University, and a Visiting Fellow at Institutions such as the Minda de Gunzburg Centre for European Studies at Harvard University, New York University, the Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute (EUI), and the Berlin Social Sciences Centre (WZB). Her main research interests lie in the comparative study of democracy, political culture and political sociology in the EU multilevel system. She especially focuses on changes of concepts and institutions, as well as on the related debates and discourses. Wiesner's second field of Research is Public Policy, its evaluation, its reform and its theory. Here she has a long-standing experience in public policy consulting. 

Wiesner is the Principal Investigator of the Jean Monnet Network “Debating Europe” and of the international projects “Transnational Governance and Human Rights” and “Practising Transnational Politics". Moreover she chairs the ECPR Standing Group “Political Concepts”. She published various monographs, volumes and book chapters with publishers such as Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Springer and Nomos and journal special issues and articles in journals such as Contemporary Political Theory, integration, the Journal of European Integration, Leviathan, Politics and Governance, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Redescriptions, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft and Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft.

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Muriel Cathérine Pluschke is a research assistant, PhD student and lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. She is working on her PhD project on the subject of “Top-down und bottom-up Dynamiken europäischer Öffentlichkeit im Lokalen” (Top-down and bottom-up dynamics of a European public sphere in the Local). Her research interests focus on the European Union and European Integration, the building of a European Public Sphere, (local) Journalism as well as Democracy. Muriel C. Pluschke holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and Economics from Bielefeld University and a Master's degree in “Intercultural Communication and European Studies” from Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

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Zhylien Kaja is a research coordinator and assistant at the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. He holds a Master's degree in Intercultural Communication and European Studies from the same institution. Previously, he worked as a student assistant for Professor Doctor Claudia Wienser and as an academic tutor for the subject "Introduction into the EU Integration" at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. Kaja is working on his Ph.D. project with a focus on EU enlargement and the Western Balkans, examining the impact of civil society on political changes that could facilitate the Western Balkans' accession to the EU. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in British and American studies from the University of Tirana. His research interests primarily revolve around the European Integration, civil society, democracy, and the Western Balkans' prospects of joining the EU.

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Jessica Schmidt joined the Fulda University of Applied Sciences in September 2024. She has received her PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Westminster, London, UK with a thesis tracing the shifting notion of democracy in discourses of international policymaking from the cold war to climate change policy programming. She has completed a post-doc fellowship at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/ Centre for Global Cooperation Research, Duisburg, Germany. Jessica then left academia and was trained as a forestry worker. Before rejoining academic life, she has worked at the press office of HessenForst where she is currently on leave.

Her research interests sit at the intersection of political theory and policy discourse working on questions around rationalities of governance with a focus on the rise of complexity thinking and posthumanist approaches. She has published in various international journals and edited volumes on democracy promotion, climate change, resilience and neoliberalism. Her current research interests include Anthropocene thinking, crises of democracy and rationalities of Anticipatory Governance.

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