Thorsten Benner

Thorsten Benner is co-founder and director of the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin. His areas of interest include the interplay of the US, Europe and non-Western powers in the making of global (dis)order, German and European policy vis-à-vis China and Asia-Pacific, peace and security as well as data and technology politics. Prior to co-founding GPPi in 2003, he worked with the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, the UN Development Programme in New York, and the Global Public Policy Project in Washington, DC.

His commentary has appeared in DIE ZEIT, International New York Times, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Handelsblatt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others. His publications include The New World of UN Peace Operations: Learning to Build Peace? (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Critical Choices. The United Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance (Ottawa, 2000).

Thorsten is an adjunct faculty member at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, where he has been involved since its founding in 2003. From 2011 to 2015, he worked with the founding team of the School of Public Policy at Central European University. He is a member of the Global Board of Directors of More in Common.

He studied political science, history, and sociology at the University of Siegen (Germany), the University of York (UK), and the University of California at Berkeley. From 2001 to 2003, he was a McCloy Scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he received a master’s degree in public administration. He received scholarships from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the German National Academic Foundation.