Christward Gradenwitz is Lecturer in International Politics. He is also Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission the Netherlands.

More information about Christward Gradenwitz

Dr. Christward J. Gradenwitz is Lecturer in International Politics at the Institute of Political Science. He teaches the seminar The Art and Science of Statecraft. Being educated at Oxford and Harvard, and having spent many years working at the Binnenhof as Deputy Secretary General of the Senate, he is ideally placed to combine theory and practice.

Christward Gradenwitz’s main interest is what it takes to lead a state in the present age, or, more precisely, what statesmanship is called for in the world we are living in now. In its essence it presupposes a thorough understanding of both the nature of the state, and the state of nature. While most of political thinking, by admission or assumption, is still based on social contract theories, which maintain that the state of nature disappears as soon as civil society is established, Christward Gradenwitz argues that the two operate in tandem, simultaneously. Having tested his hypotheses with the late Stanley Hoffmann and Joseph Nye, Jr., he developed a general theory of International Relations based on Grotius and Spinoza.

Christward Gradenwitz is the Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission the Netherlands. Previously, he worked with the Treasury Department of the Netherlands, the IMF, the World Bank, and the Netherlands Competition Authority (ACM). From 2008 to 2016 Christward Gradenwitz worked for the President of the Netherlands Senate. Besides his management responsibility, he was secretary of the Senate Committee for Foreign Affairs and Defence. Prior to joining the Fulbright Commission in December 2020, he worked with the Social Insurance Bank of the Netherlands (SVB) as General Counsel, and member of the Board of Directors.

Before embarking on his career in the public service, Christward Gradenwitz was Visiting Fellow at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in New Delhi, and Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute in Florence. The late Max Kohnstamm, one of the closest aides to Jean Monnet, had asked Christward Gradenwitz to do research on the philosophical foundations underpinning the project of European integration, as can be construed from the notes Kohnstamm had made of the many conversations he had had with Monnet on the subject over the years. At the EUI, Christward Gradenwitz did this research into the ‘philosophie européenne’ under supervision of both Kohnstamm and Hans Daalder.

Having an MA and PhD in International Relations from Leiden University, Christward Gradenwitz studied at Sciences Po in Paris, and earned an MJur at the University of Oxford (Christ Church) on a British Chevening Scholarship and a EUROPAEUM Scholarship. For his MPA at Harvard University (Kennedy School of Government), in 2002-2003, he received a combined scholarship from both the Netherland-America Foundation and Fulbright.