Sören Stapel

Dr. Sören Stapel is a Research Associate at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science, within the Department of Politics and Social Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin. He holds a doctorate earned summa cum laude in 2016 and has held academic positions at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Freiburg, where he led a DFG-funded project on overlapping regionalism. He has served as a substitute professor at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and the University of Freiburg, demonstrating significant academic engagement.

His research centers on international organizations, global governance, comparative regionalism, and regime complexity. He investigates how norms and policies diffuse between regional bodies, the financial dynamics of regional organizations in the Global South—particularly in Africa—and the interplay between democracy, human rights, and institutional development. His regional expertise focuses on Europe and Africa, with deep analysis of the African Union, ECOWAS, IGAD, and SADC.

Dr. Stapel's recent publications reveal a strong trend in analyzing overlapping regionalism and regime complexity, examining how multiple international organizations interact, compete, and cooperate. His work increasingly focuses on the financing of regional organizations by external actors like the EU, USA, and China, and how this shapes governance and ownership. He employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, often developing original datasets to support comparative analysis across world regions.

His scientific recognition includes earning his doctorate summa cum laude. He has co-authored influential monographs and numerous articles in top journals such as Review of International Organizations, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, and Third World Quarterly.

Dr. Stapel has secured competitive research funding, including from the Swedish Research Council (VR) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). He has actively mentored and collaborated with scholars, though formal advisees are not listed. He was a key contributor to the Sonderforschungsbereich 700 and the Kolleg-Forschergruppe 'The Transformative Power of Europe?'. From 2018 to 2021, he served as a spokesperson for the Working Group on European and Regionalism Research (AKER) of the German Political Science Association (DVPW), highlighting his leadership in the academic community.