Hannah Arendt Prize 2025 for Political Thought Awarded to Seyla Benhabib

Award for one of the most important political philosophers of our time

The Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought 2025 will be awarded to Seyla Benhabib. The internationally renowned political philosopher and theorist will accept the prize on December 9, 2025, at Bremen City Hall. The award is endowed with €10,000 and is presented by the Hannah Arendt Association for Political Thought e.V., with funding provided by the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and the Heinrich Böll Foundations at both the federal level and in Bremen. 

The international jury honors Prof. Dr. Seyla Benhabib as an outstanding political and philosophical intellectual. Her theoretical analyses address some of the central political challenges of our time, including migration, feminism, political belonging, and international conflicts. Beyond her scholarly work, she actively engages in public debates, emphasizing nuanced perspectives where others risk polarization.

Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s concept of “thinking without a banister,” Benhabib maintains an independent judgment that considers the perspectives of others, openingspaces for further discourse in heated societal debates. By combining critical theory, feminist theory, and cosmopolitanism with Arendt’s thought, she has forged a distinct and influential approach in contemporary political theory.

Seyla Benhabib was born in 1950 in Istanbul into a Sephardic-Turkish family. She is among the most influential political philosophers of the present. She has taught at Harvard University, the New School for Social Research, and Yale University in political science and philosophy. Following her retirement, she has conducted research at Columbia Law School in New York. Her work is published in Germany by Suhrkamp.

International Jury Members:

• Filipp Dzyadko, Russian author, supporter of Memorial (Berlin, in exile)
• Alexander Estis, writer, translator, and journalist (Switzerland)
• Waltraud Meints-Stender, Professor of Politics and Education, Hochschule Niederrhein (Hannover, Mönchengladbach)
• Ronya Othmann, writer and journalist (Leipzig)
• Cristina Sánchez, Professor of Law, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
• Facundo Vega, Professor of Philosophy, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago (Chile), ICI Berlin
• Klaus Wolschner, journalist, media scholar (Vienna, Bremen)

Contact: 
For inquiries, please contact the chair of the association, Prof. Dr. Waltraud Meints-Stender: 
E Waltraud.Meints-Stender@hs-niederrhein.de
» Website of the associaton