Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) - German Institute for International and Security Affairs

SWP was founded in 1962, at the height of the Cold War, as an independent foreign policy research organisation. Its mission was defined in its statutes, which are still valid today: “to conduct scholarly research in the fields of international politics and foreign and security policy (…) with the objective of providing independent research-based policy advice”. The spectrum of research activities expanded in step with international developments. Initially questions of disarmament and East-West relations were foremost. These days SWP’s eight research divisions cover all the regions of the world and the great majority of relevant overarching issues: from classical security policy, European policy and questions of international law, global governance and the shifting balance of power in the international system through to climate protection, demography, resource scarcity and the challenges involved in dealing with non-state violent actors or cross-border socio-political developments.

For nearly four decades the SWP was based in Ebenhausen outside Munich, deliberately at a distance from the country’s political centre, but moved to the new capital Berlin in 2001. It is now Europe’s largest foreign policy and security think-tank. In 2009 SWP opened a small office in Brussels to facilitate communication and exchange with partners in and around NATO and the EU, reflecting the absolute centrality of Europe for German foreign policy.

SWP is largely publicly funded, through the budget of the Chancellery, but also receives private support, in particular research grants and funding for conferences and doctoral and post-doc stipends.

Policy advice in a complex environment

The end of the East-West confrontation and the completion of German reunification have greatly changed and expanded international expectations of Germany. In an era of globalisation and fluid multipolarity, the international environment and the problems politicians and leaders are expected to deal with are increasingly complex. International developments with direct repercussions on Germany and Europe unfold more quickly; crises, conflicts and risks not only migrate from continent to continent but permeate through different fields of politics – and thus become systemic. At least for the states of Europe, threats are today no longer primarily military in nature. But armed conflicts still remain an aspect of international reality and military instruments continue to be required for crisis intervention and stabilising fragile states. Today no single state, nor even a single alliance, is in a position to solve global problems or long-running regional conflicts on its own. Effective multilateral cooperation and networking are the order of the day at all levels.

All these developments have increased the demand for qualified advice on questions of international politics. At the national level the number of actors playing a relevant role in foreign relations has increased. Foreign policy and international security are no longer the sole preserve of the foreign and defence ministries. The Chancellery, numerous ministries, the Bundestag, the states (Länder), and non-state actors – especially business – all play a role in shaping the country’s external relations and the international environment, and all need good independent advice. That is what SWP provides; in the first place to the German Bundestag and the government, but increasingly also to business and to an interested expert audience.

Sparring partner for politics

SWP is, of course, not the only provider of expertise and advice in the think-tank and consultation market, not even in the field of foreign and security policy. Its specific combination of academic scholarship, independence and focus on political relevance is however, alongside the size of the institute and the breadth of its research programme, unique. Non-partisanship is embodied in the composition of the SWP Council, in which all the parliamentary groups in the Bundestag are represented. SWP defines its own research projects and priorities, pursuing political relevance as the top criterion. We do not conduct research on demand, and it goes without saying that our research findings and recommendations follow no pre-determined policy line.

Good research-based policy advice combines a number of functions: it must offer information and interpretation and come up with new ideas. A research institute like SWP should serve politicians as a kind of sparring partner, allowing them to test, challenge and if necessary refine their ideas. While it ideally fulfils an early warning function, predictions about future developments should not be expected from a serious research organisation. Instead, SWP provides down-to-earth discussion of scenarios and options in a manner that reflects imponderabilities of politics, especially in the international sphere. The normality of the unexpected and unplanned is taken as read. Finally, a research institute like SWP must be a place of strategic debate on foreign and security policy, a venue of exchange where leaders and international partners come together with scholars to discuss the spectrum of rational, necessary and feasible options in a confidential atmosphere insulated from the pressures of everyday party politics.

Much has changed in the past fifty years. And just as the international environment remains in flux, so too will SWP continue to develop and change in order to remain what it has been for the past five decades: a relevant actor informing, interpreting, developing ideas, and occasionally provoking irritation.