Thomas Winzen is Professor of Political Science with a focus on European Politics and International Relations at the Department of Social Sciences, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and an Associate Editor at the Journal of European Public Policy. His research explores the development and functioning of the European Union, with particular attention to differentiated integration, the role of national and international parliaments, and the implications of democratic backsliding for EU institutions and decision-making. Beyond European politics, his work engages with broader themes of global governance, especially the emergence of international parliaments and the international strategies and impact of autocracies and autocratization. Winzen’s scholarship has been recognized with several distinctions, including the Best Book Prize of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (2018), the International Geneva Award of the Swiss Network for International Studies (2018), and the Young Scholars Award of the Swiss Political Science Association (2016).

He studied European Studies at Maastricht University (B.A., 2007), earned an M.A. in Research Methods in Politics at the University of Sheffield (2008), and completed a second M.A. in Comparative and International Studies at ETH Zurich (2010), where he also obtained his doctorate in 2013. Before joining Düsseldorf in 2022, Winzen held academic positions at the University of Essex, the University of Mannheim, ETH Zurich, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies.

Winzen, Thomas. 2025. How Backsliding Governments Keep the European Union Hospitable for Autocracy: Evidence from Intergovernmental Negotiations. The Review of International Organizations 20(2): 385–414.

Schimmelfennig, Frank, Thomas Winzen, Tobias Lenz, Rocabert, Jofre, Lori Crasnic, Cristina Gherasimov, Jana Lipps, and Densua Mumford. 2021. The Rise of International Parliaments: Strategic Legitimation in International Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schimmelfennig, Frank, and Thomas Winzen. 2020. Ever Looser Union? Differentiated European Integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Winzen, Thomas. 2017. Constitutional preferences and parliamentary reform: Explaining national parliaments’ adaptation to European integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Winzen, Thomas. 2016. "From capacity to sovereignty: Legislative politics and differentiated integration in the European Union." European Journal of Political Research 55(1):100-19.