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Biography
Andreas Bieler is Professor of Political Economy. His general expertise is in the area of International Relations/International Political Economy theories and the analysis of European integration as well as resistance to neo-liberal globalisation with a particular emphasis on the possible role of labour movements understood in a broad sense. He is author of Global Capitalism, Global War, Global Crisis (with Adam. D. Morton) (CUP 2018) and Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe (Zed Books 2021).
He runs the blog on Trade unions and global restructuring, providing analytical commentary on labour movements and their attempts to resist exploitation in today's neo-liberal, global capitalism.
Teaching Summary
Andreas Bieler has taught modules on European integration, European political economy, Comparative European Politics, International Political Economy as well as Theories of International Relations… read more
Research Summary
Prof. Bieler's main research interest deals with the global dynamics of capitalism, neo-liberal globalisation and the possibilities for resistance. Particular emphasis is placed on the potential role… read more
Ph.D. supervision
I am interested in supervising students who want to work in the following areas:
- Resistance to neo-liberal globalisation;
- Trade unions and transnational solidarity;
- European integration and political economy;
- Struggles over the right to water;
- Alternatives to capitalism;
- Historical materialist IR theory;
Supervision as first supervisor of successfully completed Ph.D. theses
Görkem Altinörs - 'Togetherness of Minarets and Golden Arches: State, Capital, Resistance and Neo-liberalism in Turkey' (completed in September 2016).
Akif Avci - 'Unravelling the Social Formation: Free Trade, the State and Business in Turkey' (completed in September 2018).
Hang Chao - 'Regional Integration in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil and the case of Mercosur' (completed in November 2007).
Max Crook - 'State Autonomy and the Rise and Fall of British Social Democracy' (completed in November 2014).
Ertan Erol - 'Capitalist spatiality in the periphery: regional integration projects in Mexico and Turkey' (completed in November 2012).
Jamie Jordan - 'Global Restructuring and Resistance in an Age of Austerity: A Critical Political Economy Approach to the Eurozone Crisis in Greece and Portugal' (completed in May 2017).
Pei May Lee - 'Assessing Chinese development in the global economy' (completed in November 2018).
Phoebe Moore - 'South Korea's Passive Revolution: Vocational Training, Global Restructuring and the Struggle for Hegemony' (completed in December 2004).
Jokubas Salyga - 'The political economy of the Baltic states' post-communist development: A critical revisiting' (completed in June 2020).
Peter Sandby-Thomas - 'The Legitimating Logic of Stability: Analysing the CCP's Stability Discourse' (completed in May 2008).
Kostas Tzortzis - 'The development of a common education policy in the EU' (completed in October 2007).
Elif Uzgören - 'Globalisation, the European Union and Turkey: Rethinking the Struggle over Hegemony' (completed in July 2012).
Kayhan Valadbaygi - 'Neoliberalisation, State and Social Classes: The Political Economy of Contemporary Iran' (completed in January 2020).
Vera Weghmann - 'Employability and the Rise of Unpaid Work: Organising in the No-Wage Economy' (completed in September 2017).
Supervision as second supervisor of successfully completed Ph.D. theses
Javier Argomaniz - 'Post-9/11 European Union Counter-terrorism: Institutionalisation and Consistency' (completed in November 2008).
Chris Hesketh - 'Spaces of Capital/Spaces of Resistance: Mexico and the global political economy' (completed in November 2010).
Thanos Liapas - 'The Political Economy dimension of the EU-SYRIZA conflict in the first semester of 2015' (external supervisor at Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany, completed in February 2022).
Madelaine Moore - 'Re/productive Unrest: Exploring Struggles over Water in Australia and Ireland' (external supervisor at Universität Kassel/Germany, completed in November 2020).
Anisa Santoso - 'Migrant Workers Policy Making in ASEAN: a Two Level Analysis on Key Workers Sending Countries' (completed in November 2012).
Cemal Burak Tansel - 'Rethinking State Formation in Turkey: A Historical Materialist Analysis' (completed in August 2015).
Ozgun Tursun - 'Rethinking the Decline of Hegemony: A Historical Comparison between British and American Finanzialisation (completed in December 2019).
Current Ph.D. students
Tajkiya Ahmad - 'The case of Bangladesh's superficial development - Why has the country's economic growth been the catalyst for working class underdevelopment?' (registered full time since September 2023).
Oliver Dodd - 'Analysing the underlying dynamics of Colombia's 2016 peace agreement' (registered full time since September 2019; first supervisor).
Gemma Gasseau - 'The Political Economy of Water Governance in the European Union' (since May 2021; external supervisor at Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Firenze, Italy).
Liam Pritchard - 'Has Cuban foreign policy in West Africa been framed simply by the Cold War or by Counter-Hegemonic Struggle? The Case of Burkina Faso (registered full time since September 2019; second supervisor).
Andreas Bieler has taught modules on European integration, European political economy, Comparative European Politics, International Political Economy as well as Theories of International Relations first as a graduate student at Warwick University (1997 and 1998), then for three years as a lecturer at Cambridge University (1998 - 2001), before joining the School of Politics and International Relations at Nottingham University in August 2001.
First Year BA Modules
Introduction to European Politics (module convenor and contribution of lectures, University of Nottingham).
Problems in Global Politics (module convenor and contribution of lectures, University of Nottingham).
Understanding Global Politics (contribution of lectures and seminars, University of Nottingham).
Analysis of Modern Politics (contribution of seminars, University of Cambridge).
Second Year BA Modules
New Developments in IR theory (module convenor, 1h lecture + 1h reading workshop + 1h seminar per week, University of Nottingham).
Making Sense of European Integration (module convenor, 1h lecture + 1h reading workshop per week, University of Nottingham).
IPE and Global Development (module convenor, 2h lecture + 1h seminar per week, University of Nottingham).
Theories of International Relations (contribution of seminars, University of Warwick).
Third Year BA Modules
Political Challenges and Multiple Crises in the Global Economy (joint module convenor, 2h lecture + 1h seminar per week, University of Nottingham).
Globalisation and Resistance: contesting the political economy of global restructuring (module convenor, 1h lecture of 2h seminar per week, University of Nottingham).
The Impact of Globalisation: European national and regional responses to global structural change (module convenor, 2h lecture + 1h seminar per week, University of Nottingham).
West European Politics (contribution of lectures and seminars, University of Cambridge).
MA Modules
European Politics and Policy (module convenor, 1h lecture + 1h seminar per week, University of Cambridge and University of Nottingham).
International Political Economy (module convenor, 1h lecture + 1h seminar per week, University of Nottingham).
Social and Global Justice in Action (joint module convenor, 1h lecture + 2h student-led workshop per week, University of Nottingham).
Theories and Concepts in International Relations (module convenor, 1h lecture + 1h seminar per week, University of Nottingham).
Together with Adam D. Morton, I received the 2012/13 Award for Excellence in Teaching International Studies for this module by the British International Studies Association and the Higher Education Academy, UK.
Current Research
Prof. Bieler's main research interest deals with the global dynamics of capitalism, neo-liberal globalisation and the possibilities for resistance. Particular emphasis is placed on the potential role of labour movements broadly defined in resistance to restructuring, their possibilities to establish links of transnational solidarity across borders, as well as theoretical discussions of how these struggles can be conceptualised from a historical materialist perspective. Moreover, he has analysed struggles over the future European Union model of capitalism and the possibilities of national economic-political models different from a neo-liberal, Anglo-American model of capitalism.
In his most recent book Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe (Zed Books 2021), Andreas Bieler draws on years of extensive fieldwork to dissect the underlying dynamics of the struggle for public water in Europe. From the successful referendum against water privatization in Italy, via the European Citizens' Initiative on 'Water and Sanitation are a Human Right', to the struggles against water privatization in Greece and water charges in Ireland, Bieler shows why water has been a fruitful arena for resistance against neoliberal restructuring.