Vita

Wolfgang Zellner is Senior Research Fellow at the IFSH. From 1994 to 2019, he worked in different capacities within the IFSH, since 2005 as Deputy Director of the IFSH and Head of the IFSH’s Centre for OSCE Research (CORE). Wolfgang Zellner is the initiator and co-founder of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions. Wolfgang Zellner holds a diploma in sociology from the University of Regensburg and a Ph.D. in political sciences from the Free University of Berlin. The title of his summa cum laude dissertation thesis was: “The Negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe with a Special Focus on the New Political Situation in Europe and the Role of the Federal Republic of Germany.”. From 1984 to 1991, he worked as an adviser to a member of the German Bundestag dealing with issues of security and military policy as well as of European arms control.

Research Profile | Current Projects

For more than 30 years, Wolfgang Zellner has been dealing with issues of European security policy with a focus on options for the creation of a cooperative order in Europe and the role of the OSCE in this context. This includes issues regarding conventional arms control at European (CFE Treaty, Vienna Document) and sub-regional levels. A recent project deals with risk reduction by arms control in the contact zones between NATO and Russia. Over many years, Zellner has dealt with the regulation of unresolved conflicts (Moldova, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno Karabakh) and open conflicts such as that in Ukraine, as well as with the prevention of ethno-political conflict constellations by, among others, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Currently, his interests are dedicated to the problems and alternatives for European security orders against the background of global hegemonic change and the increasing fragility of the international system it creates.

Selected Publications