Friedrich Opitz, M.A.
© Corinna Mehl
Doctoral Research Associate
NameFriedrich Opitz M.A.
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Friedrich Wolfgang Opitz is a Lecturer in International Politics and Transatlantic Relations. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Leipzig. Funded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, he is conducting comparative research on structural change in East Germany and the American Midwest, where he was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Wisconsin. Parallel to his doctoral studies, Friedrich Opitz is engaged as an Associate Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), where he is researching the Zeitenwende in Eastern Germany. He also serves as a Fellow and leads the working group on Climate, Labor, and Innovation within the Industrial Heartland Project, a collaboration between das Progressive Zentrum Berlin, the Progressive Policy Institute, and the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University. Friedrich Opitz previously worked as a Program Director at the German-American Institute Saxony, among other roles. He completed his studies in Leipzig, Dresden, Strasbourg, and the USA.
Table of contents
Research and Publications
Opitz, Friedrich. "The Great Re-embedding: From Economic Marginalization to Political Mobilization in the American Midwest and Eastern Germany." In *Handbook on The United States and Globalization Projects*, edited by Maruschke et al., forthcoming.
Opitz, Friedrich. “The Enemy is the Greens:” *Green Transformation & Discontent in the American Midwest and Eastern Germany* in *German Politics*, Special Issue: It’s not that Easy being Green (in the East), Pates et al., forthcoming.
Opitz, Friedrich, and Vollmann, Erik. "Who Owns the Streets? Protest Movements Between Calls for Peace, Social Justice, and Anti-Establishment Populism." In *German Politics*, forthcoming.
Opitz, Friedrich. "Left Behind in Saxony and Ohio." In *Neoliberal Economic Policy and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism*, edited by John Komlos, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
Opitz, Friedrich, and Kira Vinke. “Transformation at a Crossroads – What Is at Stake in the US Election and How It Affects Europe.” *DGAP Memo 18* (2024). German Council on Foreign Relations. September 2024.
LeRiche, Matthew, and Friedrich W. Opitz. “Perverting Human Security: Right-wing Populism and the Attack on Cooperative International Security.” *E-IR Journal*, 2019. https://www.e-ir.info/2019/08/23/right-wing-populism-and-the-attack-on-cooperative-international-security/
Teaching Experience
| 2023 - 2025 |
(Adjunct Assistant) Lecturer since Oct. 2025, Center for International Studies, TU Dresden; taught, co-led, and designed graduate and undergraduate courses in Current Affairs; Global Risks; Transatlantic Relations; International Institutions and World Orders in Transformation. |
| 2020 - 2021 |
Adjunct Lecturer, Institute for American Studies, Leipzig University |
| 2019 |
Program Coordinator and Course Instructor, Transatlantic Student Summit |
| 2018 |
Teaching Assistant, International Summer School on Security Studies, Leipzig University; Graduate and advanced undergraduate course: “Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of the Emerging World Order at the Turn of the 21st Century.” |
| 2018 | Teaching Assistant, Transatlantic Student Summit; Two-week undergraduate workshop: “The Opioid Crisis in the Transatlantic.” Conducted with students from Leipzig University and Ohio University on Science Communication and Policy Writing. |