Malte Riemann is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) at Leiden University, where he also serves on the Board of Examiners. His research examines the narrative foundations of global order, with a particular focus on how political violence is framed, legitimised, and governed. Malte’s research has been published in leading international journals in the fields of International Relations, security studies, and public health. He is also co-editor of the textbook Security Studies: An Applied Introduction and serves as a series editor for Routledge’s Private Security Studies. In addition to his academic work, he has professional experience in defence policy, having worked as a senior civil servant at the UK Ministry of Defence.

More information about Malte Riemann

Malte Riemann is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, where he also serves on the Board of Examiners. His work sits at the intersection of International Relations, Security Studies, Critical Military Studies, and Global Health, combining historical, conceptual, and policy-oriented analysis.

A core question driving Malte’s work, both inside and outside academia, is how the (de)legitimisation of political violence orders global politics, and how concepts and ideas translate into concrete policy responses. His research is organised around three interrelated strands. 

The first examines the role of Violent Non-State Actors in European state formation processes. Challenging ahistorical assumptions in International Relations, this work demonstrates how dominant narratives of political violence have systematically neglected the constitutive roles of gender, race, and sexuality in processes of state-making. The second strand investigates how political violence is rendered legitimate, governable, or manageable through practices of security and defence policymaking. Focusing on ontological (in)security and temporal security narratives, this research shows how shifting understandings of violence shape institutional identities and policy choices. A third strand explores the relationship between International Relations and Global Health through the concept of medicalisation. Here, Malte examines how health discourses depoliticise violence, reframe insecurity as a technical problem, and in doing so reshape peacebuilding and post-conflict governance.

He explores these issues with an empirical focus on Mercenaries and Private Military and Security Companies, European and German Defence Policy, Street Gangs and Public Health Organisations. 

Malte’s research has been published in leading international peer-reviewed journals, including European Journal of International Relations, European Journal of International Security, Journal of Global Security Studies, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Critical Public Health, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Defence Studies, Globalizations, Critical Military Studies, and Small Wars & Insurgencies. He is the co-editor of the textbook Security Studies: An Applied Introduction (SAGE) and serves as series editor of Routledge Private Security Studies.

His research has been funded by the Netherlands Initiative for Educational Research (NRO), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Earhart Foundation, the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, and the European International Studies Association (EISA). In 2022, the International Studies Association’s Historical International Relations section awarded his Journal of Global Security Studies article the Merze Tate Prize for best article in Historical IR. He has also been awarded an NRO Comenius Fellowship for 2025–26 for developing a pedagogical approach designed to bridge creative storytelling with foresight methodologies designed to study the future of war and conflict.

Prior to joining Leiden University, Malte taught at the University of Glasgow, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and the University of Reading, and he has held visiting fellowships at the University of St Andrews and the University of Reading. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the UK Research & Innovation Talent Peer Review College, an associate of the Urban Violence Research Network at King’s College London, and an Associate of the Centre for Advanced International Theory at the University of Sussex.

Alongside his academic work, Malte brings practical experience from defence policymaking, having previously served as a senior civil servant in the UK Ministry of Defence.  

Activities