Ludger Kühnhardt (born 4 June 1958) is a German political scientist, journalist and political advisor. From 1991 until 1997, he was Professor of Political Science at the University of Freiburg. From 1997 until his retirement in July 2024,At this occasion a workshop was held at Bonn University with renowned participants from all over the globe, discussing the ambivalence of progress: https://www.zei.uni-bonn.de/de/ueber-zei/archiv/workshop-ambivalenz-des-fortschritts. he was Director at the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI) and Professor at the Institute for Political Science and Sociology at the University of Bonn.
Biography Ludger Kühnhardt was born on 4 June 1958 in Münster. He was born as the eldest of four children of the ophthalmologist Gerhard Kühnhardt and the kindergarten teacher Irmgard Kühnhardt, née Hoffmann. After graduating from the Goethe-Gymnasium in Ibbenbüren, Kühnhardt completed editorial training at the German Journalism School in Munich in 1977/78. He then worked as a freelance journalist, primarily for the Deutsche Zeitung/Christ und Welt (later merged to form Rheinischer Merkur), Deutsche Welle and Westdeutscher Rundfunk. In 1979 he was awarded the Catholic German Journalist Prize. Kühnhardt carried out extensive journalistic reporting trips through Asia and Africa and made TV documentaries in South Korea, Bangladesh and India. He did his community service looking after refugees (boat people) from Vietnam.On his family background, upbringing and important sources of inspiration, see his work biography: Ludger Kühnhardt. Impulsgeber zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Publizistik. Eine Werkbiographie. Springer VS: Wiesbaden 2023. pp.9–38. (Print); (ebook).
Kühnhardt completed his studies in history, philosophy and political science in 1983 with a doctorate under the supervision of Karl Dietrich BracherLudger Kühnhardt. Karl Dietrich Bracher (1922–2016). Aus der Geschichte lernen. ZEI Discussion Paper C 269. Bonn: Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung 2022. at the University of Bonn. His dissertation was entitled Die Flüchtlingsfrage als Weltordnungsproblem (The refugee question as a global order problem).Ludger Kühnhardt. Die Flüchtlingsfrage als Weltordnungsproblem. Massenzwangswanderungen in Geschichte und Politik. Vienna: Braumüller Universitäts-Verlagsbuchhandlung 1984 In preparation for his doctorate, research studies took him to the archives of the League of Nations and the UNHCR in Geneva as well as to refugee camps around the world. Kühnhardt undertook postgraduate studies in 1983/84 at Sophia University and at the International Christian University in Tokyo and in 1984/85 at Harvard University (Kennedy Memorial Fellow). Subsequently, he worked as Karl Dietrich Brachers last research assistant before Brachers retirement in Bonn. In January 1987 he received his habilitation from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Bonn. His habilitation thesis, entitled Die Universalität der Menschenrechte. Studie zur ideengeschichtlichen Bestimmung eines politischen Schlüsselbegriffs (The Universality of Human Rights) is considered a standard work.Ludger Kühnhardt.Die Universalität der Menschenrechte. Studie zur ideengeschichtlichen Bestimmung eines politischen Schlüsselbegriffs. Munich: Günter Olzog Verlag 1987.
From March 1987 to June 1989, Kühnhardt worked as a speechwriter for Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker in the German Federal President's Office.Ludger Kühnhardt. Richard von Weizsäcker (1920–2015). Momentaufnahmen und Denkwege eines deutschen Staatsmannes. ZEI Discussion Paper C 257. Bonn: Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung 2020. He then carried out research studies at St Antony's College in Oxford. In 1990/91 he was pro-tem professor for political science at the University of Bonn and from 1990 to 1992 a visiting professor in the history seminar at the University of Jena, supporting the development of Political Science at that university after German reunification. In 1991, Kühnhardt was appointed by the Baden-Württemberg Science Minister to the Chair of Scientific Politics (succeeding Arnold Bergstraesser and Wilhelm Hennis) at the University of Freiburg. In 1994/95 he served as Dean of his faculty.In 1997, Ludger Kühnhardt was appointed director of the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI) at the University of Bonn, which was founded as part of the scientific expansion of Bonn after the decision to move the German capital to Berlin. This appointment was combined with an appointment as professor of political science at the Bonn Seminar for Political Science (today the Institute for Political Science and Sociology). Together with Jürgen von Hagen (economist) and Christian Koenig (legal scholar), Kühnhardt built up and led ZEI over more than 25 years as an internationally renowned research, outreach and further education institution. ZEI conducted several hundred research projects, was involved in political consultancy work and built up a lasting reputation with its successful "Master of European Studies – Governance and Regulation" with alumni from more than hundred countries around the globe.ZEI (ed.).Opening doors – Master of European Studies. Governance and Regulation 1998–2018. Bonn: ZEI 2018. ; Christian Koenig/Ludger Kühnhardt (eds.). Transdisciplinary Research and Education in Regional Integration. 1995–2020 Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung. Bonn: ZEI 2020. . He denied professorial appointments to Vienna and Hong Kong.Visiting professorships and longer research stays took Kühnhardt to St Antony's College at Oxford, the University of Cape Town, the al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, the Collège d'Europe in Bruges, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Stanford University, Dartmouth College (New Hampshire), and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, D.C.), the Seoul National University, the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, the Tongji University in Shanghai and the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Florianópolis. Beyond his retirement Kühnhardt teaches as Visiting Professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Alta Scuola di Economia e Relazioni Internazionali, ASERI) in Milan (since 1997),Universitá Cattolica di Sacro Cuore, ASERI, https://aseri.unicatt.it/aseri-who-we-are-faculty at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna (since 2002)Diplomatische Akademie Wien, https://www.da-vienna.ac.at/en/Faculty/Department-of-International-Relations. and at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies (MEDAC) in Malta (since 2007).Times of Malta, 21.2.2010, https://timesofmalta.com/article/medac-students-visit-germany.295011.
Kühnhardt has repeatedly worked as an advisor to political and church actors, for example for the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the President of the European Parliament, the Parliament of the West African regional organization ECOWAS, the Secretary General of the ACP Group (now: Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States OACPS) and the German Catholic Bishops' Conference. He supported the governments of Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Croatia on their way to EU membership. For many years he worked pro bono on the governing board of the European Humanities University (EHU) in Vilnius, on the Steering Committee of the Koenigswinter Conference and the Young Leader Conferences of the Atlantik-Brücke (Atlantic Bridge), in the development of West Africa Institute in Praia and in the advisory group for EU studies at the Asia-Europe Foundation in Singapore. He continues pro bono work beyond his retirement on the board of trustees of the "Forum Mitteleuropa" ("Forum Central Europe") at the Saxon state parliament. At the request of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Kühnhardt took part in the Christian Democratic Union's CDU, program commission in 1992/94, which developed the first party program after German reunification. After the German 'Grand Coalition' was established in 2005, he left the CDU, saw himself as "politically homeless"Ludger Kühnhardt. Impulsgeber zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Publizistik. Eine Werkbiographie. op.cit. p.334 and remained independent of any party affiliation. Kühnhardt supervised over 30 habilitation theses and dissertations at the universities of Freiburg and Bonn. He maintained a regular, lively connection with his former doctoral students for over three decades in the context of "Freiburger Politikdialog/Bonner Europakolloquium".Ludger Kühnhardt (ed). Im Gespräch bleiben. Politische Wissenschaft und berufliche Praxis. Freiburger Politikdialog/Bonner Europakolloquium (1994–2023). Nomos: Baden-Baden 2023. (Print) (ePDF) Kühnhardt regularly published in leading daily newspapers (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt) and appeared on television (Phoenix) as a commentator on political events. Ludger Kühnhardt has been married to the Hungarian Enikö Noemi Kühnhardt, née Auer, since 1993. The couple has two children. Kühnhardt is a Roman Catholic.
Research priorities and early publications
As scholar and journalist, Kühnhardt deals in his research and teaching with the history of political ideas and a normatively based democratic theory, with development problems, especially focussing on cultural and religious aspects, issues of international order as well as with fundamental questions of the European Union and comparative global regional integration. His aim is to place events and processes in contemporary history in a larger context in order to make them better understandable and to deepen their respective historical and philosophical significance.So far (as of 2024) Kühnhardt has published 44 monographs, more than thousand scholarly articles, essays and journalistic texts as well as 28 books as co-author or co-editor in 25 languages (German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Hungarian, Finnish, Russian, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Romanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Turkish, Estonian, Korean, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Icelandic, Slovak, Lithuanian).Ludger Kühnhardt. Impulsgeber zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Publizistik. Eine Werkbiographie. op.cit. p.18. He has edited 88 volumes in a series of publications by the Center for European Integration Studies.Nomos Shop, https://www.nomos-shop.de/nocache/suche/ext/product/list/?tx_girashop_f205_1%5BproductLine%5D=552&cHash=648226f4ab3462d7b6abff6ea1ae0930; Nomos elibrary, https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/buchreihe/B001019900/schriften-des-zentrum-fuer-europaeische-integrationsforschung-zei?qReihe=B001019900&qReiheNr=B001019900. Kühnhardt has given public lectures in 102 countries. His articles and books were published in 25 languages.