Dr. Mitja Sienknecht

• International Relations Theory/Global Governance
• Digital Transformation of War
• Responsibility in World Politics
• Norms Research
• Kurds in Turkey and Iraq

Aktuelle Publikationen:

• Gholiagha, Sassan/ Sienknecht, Mitja 2025: “‘It’s what you ought to do’ – Appropriateness as a central concept in norms research”, in: Gholiagha, Sassan/ Orchard, Phil/ Wiener, Antje (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook on Norms Research, p. 136-148. 
  
  
• Albert, Mathias/ Sienknecht, Mitja 2025: “Typologizing Change in the Evolution of World Politics”, European Journal of International Relations, 31(4), p. 862-888.
  
  
• Gholiagha, Sassan/ Neyer, Jürgen/ Fröhlich, Bernd/ Girgensohn, Katrin/ Kiesel, Dora/ López García, Irene/ Riehmann, Patrick/ Stein, Benno/ Voigt, Julius/ Wiegmann, Matti/ Wolska, Magdalena Anna/ Sienknecht, Mitja 2025: “From annotation to reflection: how participatory AI training enhances critical thinking”, AI & Society.
  
  
• Cupać, Jelena/ Sienknecht, Mitja 2024: “Regulate against the machine: how the EU mitigates AI harm to democracy“, Democratization, 31(5), p. 1067-1090.
  
  
• Gholiagha, Sassan/ Sienknecht, Mitja 2024: “Beyond Appropriateness - A Typology of Norm-Related Behaviour in World Politics“, in: Phil Orchard, Antje Wiener (Eds.): Contesting the World: Norm Research in Theory and Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 131-150.
  
  
• Sienknecht, Mitja 2024: “Proxy responsibility: addressing responsibility gaps in human-machine decision making on the resort to force“, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 78:2, p. 191-199.
  
  
• Chiodo, Maurice/ Müller, Dennis/ Sienknecht, Mitja 2024: “Educating AI developers to prevent harmful path dependency in AI resort-to-force decision making“, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 78:2, p. 210-219.
  
  
• Gholiagha, Sassan/ Sienknecht, Mitja 2023: “Between (ir)responsibility and (in)appropriateness: Conceptualizing norm-related state behaviour in the Russian war against Ukraine”, Global Constitutionalism, p. 1-22.
  
  
• Sienknecht, Mitja/ Vetterlein, Antje 2023: “Conceptualizing Responsibility in World Politics”, International Theory, 16:1, p. 26-49.

Mitja Sienknecht graduated in Political Science (BA) from Bielefeld University/Germany and in Peace Research and International Politics (MA) from the University of Tuebingen/Germany. She researched and taught at the European University Viadrina (2013-2017), Bielefeld University (2011-2012), Koç University (2012, Turkey), the WZB Berlin Social Sciences Research Center (2017-2021), the University of Münster (2020-2021), and as interim Professor of European and International Politics at the European University Viadrina (2021/22) before joining ENS as part of the SKILL Team in December 2021.

In 2015, she received her doctoral degree from the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) with a dissertation entitled “Entgrenzte Konflikte in der Weltgesellschaft. Zur Inklusion internationaler Organisationen in innerstaatliche Konfliktsysteme” [De-bordered Conflicts in World Society: The Inclusion of International Organizations in Intrastate Conflict Systems]. At Bielefeld University, she worked on international interventions and the discursive construction of conflict (together with Mathias Albert and Kerstin Eppert). During her time at Viadrina, Mitja conducted several research projects, for example on the European border regime as well as on borders and conflicts. In the Global Governance Unit at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, she worked on responsibility relations in world politics and on questions of rebel diplomacy. At the University of Münster, she was a lecturer and researcher at the Chair of Global Governance, focusing on the construction of responsibility relations and combining approaches from political theory and international relations.

In her current research, Mitja examines the transformation of war through AI-based technologies and the governance of emerging technologies at the European and international levels. As part of the “Anticipating the Future of War” project, led by Prof. Dr. Toni Erskine (ANU) and Prof. Dr. Steven Miller (Harvard University), she has analyzed normative challenges such as the difficulty of attributing responsibility when AI-based systems are integrated into decision-making processes concerning the use of force. In this context, she developed the concept of “proxy responsibility” (Sienknecht 2024; Sienknecht, forthcoming). Policy recommendations resulting from this research project were included by the UN Secretary-General in his report “Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain and Its Implications for International Peace and Security” (A/80/78).

Her research interests include international relations theory, peace and conflict studies, international organizations, the technological transformation of war, systems theory, responsibility relations in world politics, and norms research. Empirically, she works on Turkey and Iraq, with a particular focus on Kurdish issues, as well as on the United Nations and the European Union.