Johannes Petry

Johannes Petry is a Senior Researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt's Institute of Political Science within the Faculty of Social Sciences. He serves as Principal Investigator of the DFG-funded StateCapFinance research project and maintains additional affiliations including Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation & Regionalisation.

His educational background includes a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick, where his dissertation received the Royal Geographical Society's 2022 Economic Geography Research Group PhD Thesis Prize. He also studied political science, economics, comparative public policy and international political economy in Frankfurt, Warwick and Konstanz, with practical finance industry experience between his studies and PhD.

Petry's research focuses on the politics of global finance, particularly examining China's integration into global financial markets through the lens of institutional logics. His work demonstrates that Chinese capital markets function differently from 'global' markets due to their state-capitalist institutional foundation rather than liberal market principles. He has conducted extensive fieldwork across Asia, Europe, and North America, completing over 250 expert interviews and attending more than 30 financial industry events.

His publication portfolio shows a clear trajectory examining the transformation of global financial architecture with particular attention to China's role, state capitalism, and market infrastructures. The articles demonstrate increasing sophistication in methodology, moving from comparative case studies to more systematic analyses of institutional logics across multiple emerging market contexts.

• Royal Geographical Society's 2022 Economic Geography Research Group PhD Thesis Prize
• 2024 PPE Young Scholar Award by the Institute for Social and Institutional Change
• Academy Fellowship by the Johanna-Quandt-Young-Academy

As founder of the Warwick Critical Finance Group and speaker of the International Political Economy Working Group of the German Political Science Association, Petry has secured significant research funding including DFG support for StateCapFinance and participation in the SCRIPTS Centre of Excellence. His research has influenced policy discussions through expert testimony at the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and citations in reports to US Congress and the European Commission.

Through his StateCapFinance project, Petry leads a comparative analysis of financialization processes across six state-capitalist economies (Brazil, China, India, Russia, South Africa and South Korea), investigating how capital markets function within different institutional contexts. His research group maintains active collaborations with institutions across Asia, Europe, and North America.