Biography

Moritz S. Graefrath is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and a Graduate Fellow with the Notre Dame International Security Center. During 2022–2023, he is a Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Fellow jointly appointed at the International Security Program of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

His research operates at the intersection of IR theory and international security, focusing specifically on theory-oriented analyses of great power politics and conceptual innovation. He is particularly interested in issues of international hierarchy, the decline and collapse of great powers, as well as the nature of interstate cooperation and global governance.

In his dissertation, "Power Vacuums in Great Power Politics: The Consequences of International Authority Collapse," Moritz investigates how great powers respond to the dissolution of international authority relations, such as occurs during great power retrenchment and collapse. In addition, he has conducted research on a host of conceptual issues in IR. His work on the concept of "interstate cooperation" has appeared or is forthcoming in International Theory. Other projects similarly investigate central IR concepts such as the "global commons" as well as the methodology of concept formation in the social sciences more broadly.

Moritz holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame and a B.A. in Philosophy & Economics from the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

Last Updated: Feb 28, 2023, 8:57pm

Awards

Contact

Email: mgraefrath@hks.harvard.edu

Mailing Address:

79 John F. Kennedy Street

Mailbox 134

Cambridge, Massachusetts