Profile

As a historian and political scientist, Professor Bachmann specializes in European integration, totalitarian regimes, and transitional justice, including institutions such as truth and reconciliation commissions, international criminal tribunals, and so called “lustration” - the process of vetting public officials to determine their involvement with the respective pre-transition political regime.

From 1988 to 2001, he reported on the transitions of Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania as a correspondent for various Austrian, Swiss and German newspapers. In 2001, he moved to Brussels where he worked as a correspondent for the same media (and some Polish newspapers and journals) until 2004. He has been writing for various Polish publications, including the daily Gazeta Wyborcza, the weekly Polityka, the daily Rzeczpospolita and a number of other outlets.

He also authored and co-authored many monographs and edited books, including (with Aleksandar Fatić: The UN International Criminal Tribunals. Transition without justice? (Routledge 2015), and (with Peter Lambertz and Thomas Sparrow-Botero): When Justice Meets Politics. Independence and Autonomy of Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals (2013).

At SWPS University, he lectures on European integration, modern history, international business, and transitional justice.