Dr Carolyn Moser

Dr Carolyn Moser joined the Board of the Basel Institute on Governance in July 2026.

She is an internationally renowned expert in law and governance, specialising in security and defence in Europe. Her research focuses, among others, on how national and international actors can safeguard their capacity to act and build resilience amid geostrategic upheavals, while maintaining governance standards.

Since 2022, she has served as Principal Investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, heading the independent research group ENSURE (European Security Revisited).

Her professional trajectory also includes positions at Sciences Po Paris, where she held the Alfred Grosser Chair (2023–24), and as a consultant at the Basel Institute on Governance, where she worked on rule of law and anti-corruption projects in Asia, Europe and North Africa (2011–13). Furthermore, she has held visiting positions at the European University Institute in Fiesole, Lille Catholic University and LMU Munich, to name a few.

Her interdisciplinary research, which bridges law and political science, features a prize-winning monograph alongside publications in leading peer-reviewed journals and books, as well as influential blogs. She is regularly invited to speak at public institutions such as the German Bundestag, the European Parliament and the European Commission, and frequently shares her expertise in print, television and radio media.

Carolyn studied law and political science at Sciences Po Paris and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the U.S. She earned her doctorate from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.