Consultation hour
Appointments by arrangement. Please register by e-mail.
CV
BIOGRAPHY
Prof. Dr. Gerlinde Groitl is a habilitated political scientist with special expertise in the USA, security and defence policy, strategic studies and great power competition. She heads the ISS Institute for Security and Strategy GmbH (external link, opens in a new window) in Munich and teaches international politics at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Regensburg. She previously worked at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, the University of Passau and the Chair of International Politics at the University of Regensburg. In recent years, she has been a visiting scholar at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, the university think tank LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Masaryk University in Brno, among others. She has been a member of the board of the German Society for Political Science (DGfP) since 2023. She holds degrees from the University of Regensburg and has completed certificate programmes at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the Geneva Center for Security Policy.
Groitl's research focuses on the US, Germany, the EU and NATO as well as the geopolitical, geo-economic and normative great power competition between Russia, China and the West and the erosion of the (liberal) international order. She publishes on these topics in a variety of formats. The last of her three monographs to date developed a neoclassical realist model for the study of international order and revisionism, analysing Russia and China's attack on the US-led liberal order (2023). Groitl's work has been honoured with several awards. Most recently, in 2023, she and Prof. Dr Eva Odzuck (Political Theory, University of Regensburg) received the essay prize of the Jakob Fugger Centre at the University of Augsburg for a joint work on the question of how much violence democracy needs and can tolerate.
Groitl's work has always been practice-orientated. in 2020/21, she participated in the "Expert Group USA" convened at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin to analyse the long-term development trends of US domestic and foreign policy. in 2018, she contributed to the "American-German Situation Room" project of the German Marshall Fund and the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) in Washington, DC. From 2015 to 2018, she was a member of the Young Security Policy Experts Working Group at the Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin.
Research
RESEARCH FOCUS
- Security, strategy, war
- USA, Germany, EU, NATO, transatlantic relations
- International order and revisionism
- Strategic competition between Russia, China and the West
- Geopolitics, geoeconomics, alliance dynamics
- System rivalry between democracy and autocracy, interdependencies between national and international politics
- Military and defence, interventions, hybrid conflicts
Teaching
Courses (current selection)
Summer term 2025 |
Trump 2.0: Global political implications and strategy options for Germany (OS) |
Winter term 2024/25 |
Introduction to the political system of the EU (VL) The EU and Ukraine (HS) AI, Cyber & Space: Technological Risks as a Political Challenge for the EU (HS) Research colloquium Introduction to the methods of political science (RingVL) |
Summer term 2024 |
Security policy in multi-level systems (HS) Summer Symposium on US Foreign Policy (excursion Washington, DC; HS) European Governance in the Polycrisis (HS) From integration to disentanglement? Governance beyond the nation state (OS) Research colloquium |
Winter term 2023/24 |
| European Security: Challenges and Strategic Options (HS) |
| Geopolitics, geoeconomics and the democracies of the West (OS) |
| Research colloquium Security and Strategy (FS) |
Summer term 2023 |
| Cold War 2.0? Democracy vs. autocracy (OS) |
| Summer Symposium on US Foreign Policy (summer school in Washington, DC; HS) |
| (In)Security: Europe and America (Ü) |
| Introduction to International Politics (GK) |
Winter term 2022/23 |
| German Foreign and Security Policy (HS) |
| Great Power Competition: Russia, China and the West (OS) |
| Introduction to International Politics (GK) |
Summer term 2022 |
| Introduction to International Politics (VL) |
| Summer Symposium on US Foreign Policy (summer school in Washington, DC) |
| Transatlantic Challenges in a Globalised World (Ü) |
| Introduction to International Politics (GK) |
Winter term 2021/22 |
| Governance in the Globalised World (OS) |
| Partisan division and systemic crisis in the USA (OS) |
| Introduction to Multi-Level Governance (OS) |
| Foreign and Security Policy of the FRG: Polity, Politics, Policy (HS) |
| Competition between systems: Democracy vs. autocracy (PS) |
Media
MEDIA CONTRIBUTIONS
Prof Dr Gerlinde Groitl is available for media enquiries. Please send enquiries by email to: gerlinde.groitl(at)ur.de (opens your email program)
SELECTION
Groitl, Gerlinde. "USA expert on the shutdown: Both parties are instrumentalising the emergency." Interview for Focus+ 1 October 2025, LINK (external link, opens in a new window)
Groitl, Gerlinde. "The Trump disruption". Guest commentary Neue Zürcher Zeitung 22 February 2025: 21. LINK (external link, opens in a new window)
Bierling, Stephan, and Gerlinde Groitl. "The liberal order and its enemies." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 25 April 2022: 6.
Groitl, Gerlinde. "The fairy tale of change through trade." Guest commentary. Neue Zürcher Zeitung 15 June 2021: 18.
TV
Phoenix Runde: "Merz and the NATO summit - What must Germany do?", 24 June 2025, LINK (external link, opens in a new window)
NZZ Viewpoints: "The firewall hysteria: Trump, the AfD and the future of democracy", 9.3.2025, LINK (external link, opens in a new window)
Phoenix Runde: "Trump's lurching course - What will become of Ukraine?", 11.3.2025, LINK (external link, opens in a new window)
RADIO
Bavaria 2, Radiowelt am Morgen, "Trump's speech to the United Nations". 24.9.2025.
SWR-Forum, "The turning point after Trump - How safe will we live?", 17 February 2025, LINK (external link, opens in a new window)
NDR Info, Interview "Trump relegates Europe to the second row", 18.2.2025, LINK (external link, opens in a new window)