As a student of Latin American Studies at the University of Cologne from October 2004 to September 2010, Marlene’s’ main fields of studies ranged from Political Science over International Law to Latin American History and Portuguese Language. Tracking both of her main fields of interest – the EU and Latin America - she has been working as a student assistant at the Jean Monnet Chair of Prof. Wessels at the University of Cologne from May 2007 to May 2010 and as an intern at the German Embassy in Brasília, Brazil in the period from October 2008 to January 2009. In her final thesis she focused on the strategic partnership between the European Union and Brazil in the light of the concept of interregionalism.

Working itle of research project:

Humanising security: the language of responsibility within the development of the CSDP

Supervisor: Professor John Peterson (University of Edinburgh)

Co-Supervisor: Professor Wolfgang Wessels (University of Cologne)

This Ph.D. project aims at analysing the influence of the notion of responsibility as a normative factor on the establishment and the development of a Common Security Defence Policy. The notion of responsibility is defined as a normative factor occuring in different forms (e.g. the "Responsibility to Portect"). The basic assumption is that norms are influential even in the power driven field of security and defence policy since norms involve standards of "appropriate" or "proper" behaviour. The dissertation focuses on how European discourses on responsibility have changed since the early years of European defence cooperation up to the Libyan crisis in 2011 reflecting the changin security paradigm from traditional state-centred security to human security. The analysis will center around two case studies of military interventions: the crises in Kosovo in 1999 and in Libya in 2011. The cases will be compared by four indices: 1.) The role of the European Union, 2.) The role of Germany, 3.) The question of Franco-German alliance and 4.) The connection between discourse and action.

• Together with Koenig, Nicole (2011): "The Responsibility to Protect and the Libyan Crisis: Breakthrough or nothing new?", paper presented at the 7th European Peace Research Association (EuPRA) General Conference "Europe and the World" in Tampere, 20-22 July 2011. 

• "Europe's First Couple: Necessities and Limits for claiming Franco-German leadership", conference background paper for the THESEUS Conference "Which Way Forward? Three Years after Lehmann, Two Years after Lisbon: Present Challenges, Strategic Choices and Future Perspectives of the EU", 24-25 November 2011, Cologne.

• Conference report on THESEUS Conference (see above), Cologne 2011.

• "Options for EU engagement in post-conflict Libya", TEPSA Policy Brief, 9 March 2012.

• "The responsibiliy to protect, Libya and the German Sonderweg", paper presented at the 53rd ISA Annual Convention in San Diego, 1-4 April 2012.
• Proceedings of the Workshop on "Responsibility to Protect : Future Aspects", held on 8 March 2012 in Brussels, Foreign Affairs Committee, European Parliament.
• "Humanizing Security? The EU's responsibility to protect in the Libyan crisis", FIIA Working Paper, No. 75, May 2012.

Teaching

• Seminar on "External Relations of the European Union" (together with Miguel Haubrich Seco), University of Cologne, winter term 2011/2012.

• Organisation of an EXACT workshop at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) on "The EU and its neighbourhood - current challenges and conflicts, 7-8 September 2011.

• Discussant at conference on "The Arab Spring: Managing tensions and crisis inside and outside the EU", organised by TEPSA and CEE (Sciences Po, Paris), Fondation Universitaire, Brussels, 15 March 2012.