Prof. Dr. Sophia Hoffmann

sophia.hoffmann@uni-erfurt.de

Holder of the Professorship for International Politics and Conflict Research (Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences)

Contact

C03-Lehrgebäude 1 / Raum 0144

Office hours

by appointment, Wednesdays 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.

Visiting address

Campus
C03-Lehrgebäude 1
Hieranaplatz 1
99089 Erfurt

Mailing address

Universität Erfurt
Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Internationale Politik und Konfliktforschung
Postfach 90 02 21
99105 Erfurt

Study Counsellor BA-International Relations (Faculty of Economics, Law and Social Sciences)

Contact

Lehrgebäude 1 / Raum 0144

Office hours

by appointment, Wednesdays 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.

Visiting address

Campus
Nordhäuser Str. 63
99089 Erfurt

Mailing address

Universität Erfurt
Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Internationale Politik und Konfliktforschung
Postfach 90 02 21
99105 Erfurt

Prof. Dr. Sophia Hoffmann

I am an international relations scholar with a focus on international security, intelligence agencies, migration and humanitarian aid. Having carried out extensive field research in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, I hold expertise on the international relations of West Asia, and on state-society relations in the region. 

Before joining the University of Erfurt in 2021, I led an (ongoing) research group on German-Arab intelligence relations at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin, carried out a post-doctoral project at the University of Bremen and was a lecturer at the Geneva Graduate Institute. I hold a Phd from the School of Oriental and African Studies (London) and further degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Sussex. I am the author of the book  „The Crisis before the Storm: Iraqi migrants in Syria“ (Syracuse University Press, 2016) and numerous articles in journals such as Security Dialogue, Intelligence and National Security and International Journal of Middle East Studies. My research has been supported by the EU’s COFUND programme, the Volkswagen Stiftung and the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF). I have extensive consultancy experience and regularly carry out knowledge transfer and outreach activities in a variety of settings.

Research Interests

  • International Security
  • Intelligence Agencies
  • Political Violence
  • Humanitarianism, Flight and Migration
  • Regional Politics of West Asia ('Middle East').

  • Further information on all research topics and research projects can be found here.

CV

CV

Publications

Monographs and edited volumes

2023 Forum Nachrichtendienstforschung. Journal of International Relations 2 (2022).

2016: Iraqi Migrants in Syria: The Crisis before the Storm. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Specialised article

2023 Rethinking intelligence practices and processes: three sociological concepts for the study of intelligence, Intelligence and National Security, 38:3, 319-338. with Ali Dogan and Noura Chalati.

2022 "The geopolitical economy of state-led intelligence-commerce: two examples from Iraq and West Germany",Globalisations, online first June 2022.

2021 "Circulation, not Cooperation: Towards a new understanding of intelligence agencies as transnationally constituted knowledge providers", Intelligence and National Security 36 (6), 807-826.

2020 "Arab students and the Stasi: Agents and objects of intelligence", Security Dialogue, Online First, 31st March 2020.

2017: "Humanitarian security in Jordan's Azraq Camp", Security Dialogue, 48 (2), 97-112.

2017: "The political counter-topography of international migration". Berlin Debate Initial 2017 (4).

2017: " There is no alternative: The rise of humanitarian aid in international politics", 5(1) Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Issue 1 (with Kai Koddenbrock)

2016: "The National Body in Syria and Israel: Comparing Processes of Unity and Fragmentation", Middle East Critique, Volume 25 (3), 229-247. (with Katherine Natanel)

2016: "International Humanitarian Agencies and Iraqi Migration in pre-conflict Syria",International Journal of Middle East Studies, Volume 48 (2) pp. 339-355.

2015: Article (peer reviewed) "Who do refugee camps protect? Care and Control in the Jordanian Camp Azraq". Periphery, No. 138/9

2012: "The Humanitarian Regime of Sovereignty: INGOs and Iraqi Migration to Syria."Refuge28.1, Spring 2012.

Book chapter

"The Iraqi migrant experience in Syria after 2003 or: The emergence of international humanitarianism in the Levant" in Knudsen, Are and Berg, Kjersti, eds, SuperCamp: Genealogies of Humanitarian Containment in the Middle East. New York: Berghahn Books. (In production)

2020 "The possibilities and limits of ethnography: two examples from Syria and Jordan". In: Schlichte, Klaus and Biecker, Sarah, eds,The Political Anthropology of Internationalised Politics. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.

2020 "Humanitarian Corridor"; "Sovereignty"; "Impartiality"; "International Cooperation". In: De Lauri, Antonio, ed, Humanitarianism: Keywords . Leiden: Brill.

2016. "A Sovereign for All: The Management of Refugees as Nation-State Politics". In: De Lauri, Antonio, ed, The Politics of Humanitarianism. London: IB Tauris.

Working Papers

2019: "Why is there no IR scholarship on intelligence agencies? Some ideas for a new approach", ZMO Working Paper Series.

2016: Turkish immigration politics and the Syrian refugee crisis. Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs. (with Sahizer Samuk)

2010: Research report "Sovereignty in the Lives of Iraqis in Damascus", CBRL Bulletin 5.1.

2007: Iraqi Refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic: A Field-Based Snapshot, Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, DC: Brookings Institution. (with al-Khalidi, A. and Tanner, Victor).

Reviews

2018. book review: Lisa Blaydes, State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018). 376 pp. .00 (hb). ISBN: 978-1-4008-9032-3. In: Journal of Perpetrator Research2.1.

2015. book review: Al-Ali N. and Al-Najjar, D. 2012. We are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics in a Time of War. Syracuse: SUP. Review of Middle Eastern Studies, 47 (2).

2012. book review: Kern, K. 2011. Imperial Citizen: Marriage and Citizenship in the Ottoman Frontier Provinces of Iraq. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, Review of Middle Eastern Studies, 46 (2).