Gesine Schwan (born 22 May 1943) is a German Political Science professor who, was the unsuccessful Social Democratic candidate for President of Germany, being defeated by the Christian Democrat Horst Köhler on May 23, 2004.

Schwan is currently president of the University of Frankfurt an der Oder. She graduated high-school from the bilingual Französisches Gymnasium Berlin. She studied in Berlin and Freiburg and obtained her Ph.D. and Habilitation with studies on the critique of Marxism. Formerly a professor of political science at the Free University of Berlin, she spent also some time in the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars and at the New School for Social Research. She is also an expert on German Anti-Americanism.

Schwan belongs to the German tradition of "left" opposition to Marx. Thus, while a member of the key theory committee of the SPD, the "Commission on Basic Values", 1977-1984, she was removed from this position for being too "right-wing" and only reinstated in 1996.

Schwan was put forth by the SPD as a candidate against Köhler because of her decidedly non-economist outlook; polls showed her generally ahead of him in the population, who has however no direct influence on the election of the (more symbolic than powerful) President.

Her writings include:

• Die Gesellschaftskritik von Karl Marx. Philosophische und politökonomische Voraussetzungen, 1974
• Sozialismus in der Demokratie? Theorie einer konsequent sozialdemokratischen Politik, 1982
• Politik und Schuld. Die zerstörerische Macht des Schweigens, 1997
• Antikommunismus und Antiamerikanismus in Deutschland. Kontinuität und Wandel nach 1945, 1999