Dr. habil. Cornelius Friesendorf

Head of CORE | Senior Researcher
Contact
+49 (0)40-86 60 77-14
friesendorf@ifsh.de
Hamburg
ORCiD

Vita

Cornelius Friesendorf is Head of the Centre for OSCE Research (CORE). Before joining the IFSH in 2018, he was a Senior Advisor for an EU police reform support project in Myanmar and worked as a researcher for institutions including Goethe-University Frankfurt, the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, and ETH Zurich. He received his habilitation from Goethe-University Frankfurt for a study of military interventions, and his doctorate from the University of Zurich, where his thesis examined US strategies against drug trafficking. Prior to this, he studied political science at the Free University Berlin, the London School of Economics, and in Bristol and Göttingen. He was also a journalist at the BBC World Service in London. Cornelius Friesendorf speaks English, German, French, and Russian. 

Research profile

  • European security practices
  • German policy towards Russia
  • Security in the Baltic Sea area
  • OSCE
  • Civil protection
  • International policing
  • Organizational routines 

Memberships & professional activities

  • Co-editor, OSCE Insights 

Latest Publications

A Robust Peacekeeping Force in Ukraine? A High Stakes Gamble!

Cornelius Friesendorf and Thilo Geiger, IFSH Brief Analysis, published: September 2025

Selected Publications

  • Friesendorf, Cornelius, Ronny Patz. 2025. International Bureaucracies as Constrained Entrepreneurs: The Budget Crisis of the OSCE. Global Policy DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.70056.
  • Friesendorf, Cornelius, Wolfgang Zellner. 2025. Das Ende der Schutzmacht. Was Europa nach Trumps Seitenwechsel tun muss. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 70 (4): 63-72.
  • Friesendorf, Cornelius, Philipp Neubauer. 2024. Best Practices in Security Sector Reform: EU Efforts to Change Ukraine's Public Order Policing. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 19 (3): 370-391. DOI: 10.1080/17502977.2024.2329867.
  • Friesendorf, Cornelius. 2022. Supporting Democratic Policing in Central Asia: Limitations of the OSCE. Europe-Asia Studies 74 (8): 1433-1458. DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2022.2102148.
  • Friesendorf, Cornelius. 2018. How Western Soldiers Fight: Organizational Routines in Multinational Missions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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