Benjamin Schütze - EDP Network

Benjamin Schütze

EDP Network Member

Benjamin is a research associate at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI) in Freiburg, where he leads a DFG-funded Emmy Noether junior research group on ‘Renewable Energies, Renewed Authoritarianisms? The Political Economy of Solar Energy in the MENA Region’. He researches transregional authoritarian practices and interventions in the context of US and European attempts at “democracy promotion” in Jordan, US-Jordanian military cooperation, and the political economy of renewable energy projects and infrastructures in the Middle East and North Africa. His work intersects International Relations, Middle East Studies, Critical Security Studies, and Transregional Studies.

Before joining ABI, Benjamin was a postdoc at the Department of Political Science at the University of Freiburg (2016-2021), where he gained extensive teaching and student supervision experience. In 2016, he completed his PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, during which he conducted extended field research in Belgium, Jordan, and the USA. Prior to his PhD, Benjamin worked at the Crisis Prevention and Recovery Unit of UNDP in Beirut and studied political science and Arabic in Leipzig, Beirut, and London.

His key publications include ‘Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism: US and European Policy in Jordan’, (Cambridge University Press, 2019; reviewed in The Middle East Journal and Democratization), ‘Rethinking Authoritarian Power: The Logistics Space and Authoritarian Practices in and between Secondary Port Cities of the Global South‘ (International Studies Quarterly, open-access, 2020, with Alke Jenss), ‘Marketing parliament: The constitutive effects of external attempts at parliamentary strengthening in Jordan’ (Cooperation and Conflict, 2018) and ‘Essential Readings on “Democracy Promotion”’ (Jadaliyya’s Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI), 2020).

More about Benjamin Schuetze here.

Contact: benjamin.schuetze [at] external-democracy-promotion.eu