Prof. Stefan Auer
Head, School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Professor

Email: stefauer@hku.hk

Stefan Auer is Jean Monnet Chair and Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, he worked at La Trobe University in Melbourne (2006-2013, as a Jean Monnet Chair in 2010-2013) and University College Dublin (2001-2006). He is the author of Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe (Routledge, 2004, pbk 2006), which was awarded the prize for Best Book in European Studies (2005) by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). He has published in leading politics journals, including Government and Opposition, International Affairs, The Journal of Common Market Studies and West European Politics; high impact sociology journals, such as Telos and Thesis Eleven, and area studies journals, such as Europe-Asia Studies and Osteuropa.
His research interests include political philosophy, spanning thinkers as diverse as Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, Václav Havel and Slavoj Žižek; the comparative study of nationalism and the various aspects of the crisis of the European project. He also writes occasional opinion pieces for The South China Morning Post, The Australian newspaper and comments on European politics in the media, such as ABC News 24 (based in Melbourne), CNBC and RTHK (based in Hong Kong). He is currently working on a book entitled Post-Brexit European Union: A Sovereign Europe, or a Europe of Nation States? (Hurst, forthcoming 2021).

Massive Open Online Course https://www.edx.org/course/europe-without-borders

Selected Publications
Journal Articles
‘Merkel’s Germany and the European Union: Between Emergency and the Rule of Rules’. Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics, Vol. 56, No. 1, 2021 (early view)
https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2019.6

‘Power, Violence and the Politics of Hope: Global 1989 from Czechoslovakia to Hong Kong’ (co-authored by Ching Yeung Kenneth Chan), Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 66, No. 3, 2020, pp. 467-482
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajph.12697

‘From the rule of law to the rule of rules: technocracy and the crisis of EU governance’ (co-authored by Nicole Scicluna). West European Politics, Vol. 42, No. 7, 2019, pp. 1420-1442.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402382.2019.1584843

‘Carl Schmitt in the Kremlin: the Ukraine crisis and the return of geopolitics’, International Affairs (OUP, Chatham House), Vol. 91, No. 5, 2015, pp. 953-968.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.12392

Books and Book Chapters
‘Arendt-Lektüre in Osteuropa: Zwischen existenzieller Philosophie und Politik’, in Dorlis Blume, Monika Boll and Raphael Gross (eds.) Hannah Arendt und das 20. Jahrhundert, München: Piper, 2020, pp. 83-92.
https://www.piper.de/buecher/hannah-arendt-und-das-20-jahrhundert-isbn-978-3-492-07035-5

‘CEECs-China: Whose Norms, Whose Values?’ (co-authored with Thomas Stiegler), in Weiqing Song (ed.), China's Relations with Central and Eastern Europe: From "Old Comrades" to New Partners, London: Routledge, 2018, pp. 83-99.

‘Brexit, Sovereignty and the End of an Ever Closer Union’, in William Outhwaite, Brexit: Sociological Responses, Abingdon, Oxon: Anthem Press, 2017 (2018 also as an e-book via Cambridge University Press), pp. 41-53.

Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe, London: Routledge, 2004 (pbk. 2006).
(Awarded the 2005 UACES Prize for the Best Book in Contemporary European Studies)
https://www.routledge.com/Liberal-Nationalism-in-Central-Europe/Auer/p/book/9780415406123

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE

Public Lectures and Roundtables
‘The European Union and The Challenge of Technocracy’, a panel at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna on 27 June, 2019 (available on: https://www.iwm.at/events/event/the-challenge-of-technocracy).

‘National Sovereignty in times of crisis: Borderless Europe and its Discontents’, a paper in response to a public seminar I organised with Prof Joseph Weiler (NYU) at the University of Hong Kong, 25 May 2017.
https://europe.hku.hk/news/images/20170525.pdf

Media Engagements
‘Russian interference in US election and Belarus’, Interview on The Pulse, RTHK 31, 9 October 2020.
https://www.rthk.hk/tv/dtt31/programme/thepulse/episode/704694

‘Conservative manifesto gives UK’s Johnson a strong position’, Interview for CNBC, 25 November 2019.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/11/25/conservative-manifesto-gives-uks-johnson-a-strong-position-prof.html

‘Die Entpolitisierung des Politischen?’, An hour long interview in German about Depoliticisation and Technocracy on the main Austrian Radio Station, ORF1, 1 July 2019.
https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20190701/557206/Die-Entpolitisierung-des-Politischen