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Dr. Christiane Heidbrink
Personal Details

Short Information
From January 2018 to September 2024, Dr. Christiane Heidbrink was a research associate at the Center for Global Studies (CGS) at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
She holds a PhD in Political Science (Dr. phil.) from the University of Bonn, where she completed her doctorate on security discourses around China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2024. Dr. Heidbrink received her Master of Arts in Political Science in 2017 with a master’s thesis on the evaluation of state-building measures in Afghanistan. The thesis, published by Tectum-Verlag under the title “Digging into Chaos: Security Sector Reconstruction and State-Building in Afghanistan”, focuses in particular on the efforts to build up the police and military. Previously, she received a Bachelor of Science in European Public Administration from Twente University in the Netherlands and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration from the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. She obtained these by successfully completing the binational cooperative study program Public Administration (Special Emphasis: European Studies) in 2015.
Dr. Heidbrink was the project manager at the Bonn Power Shift Monitor (BPSM) research project, which examines the changes in international power structures after the turn of the millennium. Since January 2019, she had also been responsible for editing the Bonn Power Focus. Her teaching activities at the University of Bonn combined the various aspects of her academic career, including teaching on global power shifts, security policies and state-building measures.
Main research areas: International relations, global power shift, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), qualitative and quantitative power models, state building, security research, security sector reform, state transformation, transnational governance processes.
Contact Data
Department for Political Sciences and Sociology
Center for Global Studies
Genscherallee 3
53113 Bonn, Germany
Latest Publications
- Heidbrink, Christiane. “Between the Superpowers: What Is Germany’s China Policy?” The Diplomat (July 2023)
- Heidbrink, Christiane, and Conrad Becker. “Framing the Digital Silk Road’s (De)Securitisation.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, (August 2022). https://doi.org/10.1177/18681026221117567.
- Gu, Xuewu et al.: China’s Engagement in Africa: Activities, Effects and Trends. Bonn: CGS Global Focus, 2022: https://www.cgs-bonn.de/de/publikationen/cgs-global-focus/
- Heidbrink, Christiane (2022): “Scholz’s €100 billion surprise: a paradigm shift in Germany’s security policy?” in: 9Dashline.com, März 2022. https://www.9dashline.com/article/scholzs-100-billion-surprise-a-paradigm-shift-in-germanys-security-policy.
- Heidbrink, Christiane; Nock, Philip J. (2021): “Der US-Iran-Konflikt und die fehlenden Gesichter der Macht” in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 50(3): 1. DOI: 10.15203/ozp.3433.vol50iss3.
Latest Events
- 09.11.2022: Christiane Heidbrink – China und die neue Seidenstraße – Workshop
- 19.10.2022: Christiane Heidbrink: GSP 11. Schaumburger Plattform: Chinas “Belt and Road”-Engagement in Afrika – Vortrag
- 15.10.2022: Christiane Heidbrink: China als systemischer Rivale und Wirtschaftspartner – Vortrag
- 07.10.2022: Christiane Heidbrink: (Inter-)nationalen Sicherheitsdiskurse um die „Neue Seidenstraße“ – Vortrag
- 29.09.2022: IFSB 2022 Christiane Heidbrink: Tech middle powers in the geopolitical storm: new opportunities for strategic cooperation?
Classes
- Sommersemester 2022: Gender, Konflikt, Frieden – Feministische Politik in den Internationalen Beziehungen (VMIB)
- Sommersemester 2022: Partner, Wettbewerber, Rivale – Beziehungen zu China auf dem Prüfstein (BMIB)
- Sommersemester 2021: Forschungswerkstatt deutsch-chinesische Sicherheitsbeziehungen (BMIB)
- Wintersemester 2019/2020: Faces of Power – Das Zusammenspiel von Macht und Sicherheit
- Wintersemester 2019/2020: Peace, Power and Security – Politik(wissenschaft) kontra globale Unsicherheit