Hertie School Professor of Political Sociology, Claus Offe, welcomes guests to the symposium hosted on 22 March at the Hertie School in Berlin in his honour.
Claus Offe teaches Political Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance. He completed his PhD at the University of Frankfurt and his Habilitation at the University of Konstanz. In Germany, he has held chairs for Political Science and Political Sociology at the Universities of Bielefeld (1975-1989) and Bremen (1989-1995), as well as at the Humboldt-University of Berlin (1995-2005). He has worked as fellow and visiting professor at, among others, the Institutes for Advanced Study in Stanford, Princeton, and the Australian National University as well as Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley and the New School University, New York. He is the author and editor of several influential publications in the fields of political sociology, democracy studies, studies on the modern state as well as on modes of governance and political transitions. Publications include Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies. Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (1998 with Jon Elster and Ulrich K. Preuß, Cambridge University Press), Modernity and The State. East and West (1996, Polity Press), and Contradictions of the Welfare State (1984 with John Keane, Hutchinson).