Bundesheer

Julian Thomas Hottinger works as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Federalism, University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He was previously a junior lecturer at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Lausanne. After having graduated from the University of Lausanne, he obtained his PhD degree in Political Science from the University of Bordeaux (France), and specialised as an International Conflict Mediator at the Canadian International Institute for Applied Negotiations (CIIAN) in Ottawa.

Apart from teaching graduate students, he has worked as an expert and consultant on various projects covering conflicts in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, not to mention the Liberian Peace Process, known as the Abuja Accord of August 1996. Until September 2000, he was the Vice-President of the Second Committee on "Democracy and Good Governance” within the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi, directed by Julius Kampere Nyerere (until October 1999), and by H. E. Nelson Mandela (until August 2000).

Since December 2000, Julian Thomas Hottinger has been directing a "Constitutional Think Tank Workshop for the Transitional National Government of the Republic of Somalia and the Federative Government of Puntland (North Eastern Somalia)”.

Julian Thomas Hottinger’s main research fields are the development of political parties and interest groups as well as the construction and development of democratic institutions within Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. He is a specialist in comparative legislative organisation and functioning. His latest research covers the establishing of electoral systems, the building of judiciary, and the necessary mechanism needed to establish conciliation, arbitration and mediation committees in transition to democracy