Excessive State Power and State Killings in Democracies
Thursday, March 12, 2026
9:00: Welcome and introduction: Dieter Gosewinkel/Wolfgang Knöbl
9:15 – 11:15 (chair: Wolfgang Knöbl)
I: Basics: History, theory, and law of state power
Daniel Schönpflug (Berlin): On the history of state power and violence: the turning-point of the French Revolution
Klaus Schlichte (Bremen): State power – state violence: basics of political theory
Dominik Steiger (Dresden): State power in German Constitutional Law, International Human Rights Law and the Law of Armed Conflict
Anna Bettina Kaiser (Berlin): State power and state of emergency
11:30 – 13:00 (chair: Laura Wolters)
II. The excessive use of state power in democracies
Fabien Jobard (St-Germain): Excessive, Legitimate, or Democratic? Police Lethal Use of Force in France and the USA
Luca Trenta (Swansea): Political assassinations in the history of democracies
14:00 – 17:00 (chair: Dieter Gosewinkel)
III. State killings – political assassination? – Case studies on democracies after 1945 (Part I)
1. USA and France
John Bellinger III (Washington D.C.): U.S. targeted killings under the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations
Vincent Nouzille (Paris, Zoom): (Post-)colonial targeted killings. A line of continuity from the 4th Republic to Macron
Mathilde von Bülow (St. Andrews): Algeria and the French policy of targeted killings
Gabriele Metzler (Berlin /Potsdam): France in a comparative perspective: Violence in decolonization and the rule of law
19:00 Keynote lecture:
Andreas Wirsching (München): Democracy and violence – a historical perspective
Friday, March 13, 2026
9:00 – 11:00 (chair: Philipp Müller)
IV: State killings – political assassination? – Case studies on democracies after 1945 (Part II)
2. Israel and Germany
Avner Barnea (Haifa, Zoom) The impact of the targeted killings on preventing terror attacks
Dieter Gosewinkel (Hamburg): No actors of targeted killings. The West German state – a counter model?
Adrian Hänni (Munich): Lethal signaling? The communicative dimension of targeted killings
11:15 – 13:45 (chair: Fabien Jobard)
V. State and social violence – a context of reaction?
Jennifer Earl (Delaware): Theorizing violence and state repression
Charlotte Heath-Kelly (Warwick): Digital Counterterrorism transformation in the UK: From force to big data?
Dorte Fischer (Trento): State Repression and Violent Protest. Tracing Repression from the Street to the Courtroom.
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