Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, Founding Director of the Liechtenstein Institute, dies

Wolfgang Franz Danspeckgruber, Founding Director of Princeton’s Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD), died peacefully Tuesday night, as announced in an email to the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) and LISD communities.

In 1987, Danspeckgruber became a visiting fellow at Princeton. In 2000, he founded LISD in collaboration with Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, whom he met while serving as a research fellow at Harvard.

LISD is an international relations and policy research center housed within SPIA, funded by an endowment from the House of Liechtenstein. The center coordinates programming relating to “self-determination in a globalizing world,” hosting experts, policy analysts, politicians, and others to discuss global challenges.

Danspeckgruber was born in Austria in 1956. As an undergraduate, he attended the Johannes Kepler University of Linz, then received a law degree from the University of Vienna and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Following his education, he served in the Austrian National Defense Army. He wrote or edited 10 books and over 30 articles and Opinion pieces throughout his career.

In his email to SPIA and LISD, Politics Professor and LISD Director Andrew Moravcsik said that Danspeckgruber “built up the Institute’s distinguished and ecumenical track record of private diplomacy, Track 1.5 and 2 dialogue, positive engagement in conflict zones, connection with transnational civil society, and commitment to regional and global multilateralism, particularly at the OSCE and UN.”

In recent years, LISD has hosted former global presidents and run panels on weighty geopolitical topics, such as the concept of genocides and wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

LISD’s mission statement states, “Over the past decade, for example, LISD has worked with UN diplomats to host policy proposals and ‘track two’ meetings addressing issues such as climate change and the International Criminal Court … The Institute seeks to prepare the students of today to be the leaders of tomorrow.”

An instructor in SPIA, Danspeckgruber taught seminars focusing on diplomacy and international relations from when he started through the early 2020s, including WWS 471: International Crisis Diplomacy and WWS 555C: Topics in IR: Leadership & International Relations.

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In his roles, Danspeckgruber developed meaningful relationships with students and shared his career interest in international politics with the University community.

In 2005, one LISD student said of Danspeckgruber, “He has the biggest heart of anyone I know … Throughout these last two years of the Afghanistan conference series, he has relentlessly tried his best to refocus the international community’s attention on the people of Afghanistan.”

Another student shared that “Danspeckgruber is very much attuned to his students — he sometimes refers to us as his kids. What he does is not just for the University, it is to directly impact his students.”

Meghana Veldhuis is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Bergen County, N.J., and typically covers graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and campus unions and labor. She can be reached at mv4991[at]princeton.edu.