Explore our knowledge

Poul Fritz Kjær

Professor

Subjects
Geopolitics Security Globalisation Value chain Germany EU law Europe

Primary research areas

Trans­formation and Con­flict in Glob­al So­ci­ety
How has glob­al so­ci­ety changed over time? And what are the drivers of change?
Glob­al Value Chain Law
How have value chains changed over time and what is the role of law in reg­u­lat­ing them?
European in­teg­ra­tion in the con­text of glob­al so­ci­ety
What does glob­al trans­form­a­tions mean for the European and its polit­ic­al eco­nomy?

Provid­ing the big pic­ture in a very con­crete sense

My research  

- Gives sense to the dramatic changes of our time 

- Situates current developments in history 

- Links economic, legal and political developments 

Publications

See all publications

August 2025

Three Futures of the World

‘Armageddon’, ‘Brazilianization’ or ‘Regulatory Hegemony’

Poul Fritz Kjær, Professor

Go to publication

25 June 2025

Den vigtigste transfor­ma­tion af erhvervs­li­vets vilkår siden Anden Verdenskrig

Poul Fritz Kjær, Professor

Erik Rasmussen
Go to publication

June 2025

Globalism Versus Universalism

The Legal Structuration of Global Commerce from Colonial Law to Global Value Chain Law and Beyond

Poul Fritz Kjær, Professor

Go to publication

I am in­ter­ested in how so­ci­et­ies – glob­al – na­tion­al or loc­al – emerges and evolve with a par­tic­u­lar fo­cus on their re­si­li­ence and the role of law in such pro­cesses

I hold degrees in law (European University Institute – Florence), sociology (Goethe University Frankfurt) and political science (Aarhus University) working on issues in the intersection between economy, law and politics. 

Currently I am leading the European Research Council Advanced Grant Project ‘Global Value Chain Law: Constituting Connectivity, Contracts and Corporations’ investigating the legal structuration of value chains in a historical perspective and in the context of the emergence of global society. 

Previously I directed the European Research Council Starting Grant Project ‘Institutional Transformation in European Political Economy. A Socio-legal Approach’ focusing on the transnational imprint on the emergence of national political economy regimes and national societies in Europe.

I have been a fellow at the Paris Institute for Advanced Study and at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study and visiting scholar at, among others, Harvard University, LSE and Sciences Po in Paris.

I am a member of the Academia Europaea, the European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences and recipient of the Danish Ministry of Education and Research Elite Research Prize 2023.

Re­cent Pub­lic­a­tions

Recent publications are on the law of political economy, transformative law, the concept of norms and societal resilience in the context of geopolitical change.

  • ‘Three Futures of the World: ‘Armageddon’,‘Brazilianization’ or ‘Regulatory Hegemony’, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 32, 4, 431 – 38, 2025.
  • ‘From Conflicts Law to Transformative Law’: Facing ‘Fragmented Globalisation’, European Law Open, 4, 1, 104 – 17, 2025
  • ‘Five Variations of Transformative Law. Beyond Private and Public Interests’, Erasmus Law Review, 2, 17, 140 - 46, 2023.
  • ‘What is Transformative Law?’, European Law Open, 1, 4, 760-780, 2022
  • ‘The Law of Political Economy as Transformative Law:  A New Approach to the Concept and Function of Law’, Global Perspectives, 2, 1, 1 – 17, 2021.
  • The Law of Political Economy: Transformation in the Function of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Recent research projects

Glob­al Value Chain Law: Con­sti­tut­ing Con­nectiv­ity, Con­tracts and Cor­por­a­tions (GLOB­AL­VALUE)

A European Re­search Coun­cil Ad­vanced Grant pro­ject at CBS. The goal is to de­vel­op a new so­cio-leg­al ap­proach to GVC Law, which gov­erns the com­plex leg­al in­fra­struc­tures of glob­al eco­nom­ic activ­ity.