The focus of our research activities is on the international dimension of social change and development processes. The aim is to always consider the correlation between economic and political processes. A special focus is on the international transfer of institutions: Problems may occur if less developed countries adopt (either voluntarily or under pressure from international organizations like the World Bank or IMF) the rules of economy and politics applied in more developed countries. Further key areas are the influence of ideas on institutional change processes and the history of economic theory.

Our research and teaching activities aim at viewing economic processes increasingly in their political, social and cultural contexts again. Such a contextual perspective supplements the discipline’s specialist knowledge and is essential in order to understand the global issues of the 21st century.

Based on this conviction, Joachim Zweynert has published „Schmollers Jahrbuch. Journal of Contextual Economics“ together with Nils Goldschmidt, University of Siegen, and Erik Grimmer-Solem, Wesleyan University, since 2016. He is also founding director of the  Witten Institute for Institutional Change (WIWA) with its interdisciplinary approach to analyzing economic, political and social change processes.

Joachim Zweynert was one of the initiators and during the second funding period vice-coordinator of the inter-university and multidisciplinary Network of Excellence addressing institutional change processes in post-socialism. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research funded the project with over two million euros for a period of six years from 2010 to 2015. The research alliance was coordinated at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich.

The project aims to apply the 'theory of limited und open access orders' proposed by Douglass C. North and colleagues. This theory addresses the interdependence of economic and political development processes. We examine the theory’s validity from a systematic and comparative perspective. Moreover, we explore the long-term economic and political development of various countries in continental Europe.

In 2013 and 2014 respectively, two workshops took place at the Walter Eucken Institute in Freiburg in order to discuss the concept’s sustainability for Germany in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The workshops were funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (2013) and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (2014). Steven B. Webb (World Bank) and Joachim Zweynert published the findings in a special issue of the „Constitutional Political Economy“ (26, 1, 2015).

Another workshop took place in collaboration with the Regensburger und Münchener Graduiertenschule für Ost- und Südosteuropastudien at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich in December 2015. The participants examined countries in the South and South-East of Europe on the basis of the 'limited and open access orders' concept.

Joachim Zweynert has published various essays on Russian Post-Soviet reform debates. They address the issue whether the relative failure in transforming the Russian Federation can be traced to the prevailing (economic) ideas in Russia. Currently, Joachim Zweynert prepares the publication of a monograph building on these former essays; the monograph’s working title is “When Ideas Fail. Russian Economic Debates. 1987-2012“.

This research project addresses the significance of ideas for organizing the US-American economic policy during the post-war period, such as the idea of US trade policy liberation. The doctoral thesis examines ideational influences; in particular, how it was possible to transform the prevailing protectionist economic policy and foster an increasing commercial openness instead. The focus is on the role of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Reform Act. Its socio-political measures were intended to support the 'losers' of free trade.