Delf Rothe

Delf Rothe serves as a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) in Hamburg and is integral to Universität Hamburg's CliCCS Cluster of Excellence through sub-project B3 on Conflict and Cooperation at the Climate–Security Nexus. His work critically interrogates security governance in the Anthropocene, bridging climate change, digital technologies, and political theory.

He earned his PhD in Political Science from Universität Hamburg in 2014 with a thesis on climate change securitisation, complemented by research semesters at the University of Amsterdam (2012) and University of California (2014/2015). His academic trajectory includes directing the German Research Foundation (DFG)-funded project 'The Knowledge Politics of Security in the Anthropocene' (2018-2021) and participating in the 'Sustainable Futures' postdoc programme.

Rothe's research pioneers critical examinations of resilience as a security paradigm, digital sovereignty in climate-vulnerable contexts, and non-human agency in environmental governance. He investigates how digital innovations like Earth system modeling and visual politics reshape sovereignty, while deconstructing knowledge production in climate-security discourses through posthuman and decolonial lenses.

His publication portfolio reveals a pronounced shift toward interdisciplinary climate-security analysis, synthesizing political geography, international relations, and science/technology studies to address emergent challenges: digital nationhood for climate-threatened states, vegetal politics in resilience frameworks, and the governance implications of climate engineering visualizations.

Rothe actively shapes scholarly discourse as Speaker of the Critical Security Studies Working Group within the German Political Science Association (DVPW), while leading current engagements in the CliCCS Cluster of Excellence and SECIMA project on Security Imaginaries of Climate Movements. His research is sustained by competitive funding including DFG project grants and institutional support from IFSH.