We are a team of researchers at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Political Science at the LMU Munich.
Andreas Kruck
Andreas Kruck is Principal Investigator of the project and a Senior Lecturer in Global Governance at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute of Political Science, LMU Munich. His research focuses on international institutions and private actors in global and European politics. He studies transformations in the making of security policies, global power shifts and the contestation and change of international institutions, cooptation in great power rivalries, rising powers and private economic standards, and methods of foresight in IR. His empirical expertise is in the fields of international economic and security institutions, European security-policy making, private military and security companies, non-Western emerging economies, and credit rating agencies. Check out his Google Scholar and ResearchGate profiles for recent publications.
Moritz Weiss
Moritz Weiss is a senior lecturer in International Relations at the LMU Munich. He is principal co-investigator of ‘The Making of National Security’ as well as working group leader of the COST Action ‘Networking European Security Knowledge’. His research focuses on the governance of European and international security as well as technological innovation. He was a visiting professor of international politics at the Leibniz University Hannover and the LMU Munich as well as a Jean-Monnet-Fellow at the EUI in Florence. His research was published in Governance, Review of International Political Economy, International Studies Review, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Global Security Studies, and Security Studies.
Yagnyashri Kodaru
Yagnyashri Kodaru is a doctoral researcher in the Geschwister-Scholl Institute of Political Science at LMU. In her doctoral thesis, she examines the role of defense institutional ideas in shaping varying outcomes of defense technological self-reliance in India. As part of the Making of National Security project, she is exploring the political economy of defense innovation in the US and cybersecurity policymaking in India. She has also taught an undergraduate seminar on International Relations in the winter semesters of 2024 and 2025. Yagnyashri Kodaru holds a Master’s in International Affairs from the Hertie School, where she specialized in International Security.
Lorenz Sommer
Lorenz Sommer is a doctoral researcher at the Chair of International Relations and the Chair of Global Governance and Public Policy. He has received his Masters degree in Political Science at the University of Bamberg, with a focus on International Relations and on Computational Social Science methods. His doctoral research covers state security competition in cyberspace, applying classical concepts of security studies literature on this new domain. In his PhD and project work, he has applied quantitative methods, usually for mapping purposes, and qualitative methods in equal measure. He has been teaching undergraduate seminars in the winter semesters 2024 and 2025.
Andrea Johansen
Andrea Johansen is a doctoral researcher at the Chair of Global Governance and Public Policy. Her research focuses on arms control of dual-use technologies. In her PhD project, she analyzes under which conditions governments support the regulation of dual-use technologies, such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, or nuclear technology. Her focus lies on the role advocacy networks and domestic interest groups play in this context. Besides, she studies national security practices in the field of military artificial intelligence, with a particular interest in the transformation of state-industry relations. Andrea holds an M.A. from the University of Konstanz.
Katharina Kausche
Katharina Kausche studied political science and history in Heidelberg, Paris and Munich. During her studies, she focused on the regulation of the digital space and specialised in qualitative empirical research. She is particularly interested in current issues relating to the regulation of technologies and their private-public constellations.
