Benjamin Schütze - EDP Network

Benjamin Schütze

EDP Network Member

Benjamin Schütze is a Senior Researcher 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’. His research examines transregional authoritarian practices and the politics of intervention via a focus on US and European attempts at ‘democracy promotion’ in Jordan, US-Jordanian military collaboration and the political economy of renewable energy infrastructures and projects in the Middle East and North Africa. His work is situated at the intersections of international relations, Middle Eastern politics, critical security studies and transregional studies.

Before working with the ABI, Benjamin was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Freiburg’s Department of Political Science (2016-2021), where he gained extensive experience in teaching and supervising undergraduate and postgraduate students in a range of IR-related topics and the politics of the Middle East. In 2016, he completed his doctoral research at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, during which he conducted extensive field research in Belgium, Jordan and the USA. Prior to his PhD, Benjamin worked with UNDP’s Crisis Prevention and Recovery Unit in Beirut and studied Political Science and Arabic Studies 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

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Publications by Benjamin Schütze

Hassam Hussein, Benjamin Schütze | 2023

The Geopolitical Economy of an Undermined Energy Transition: The Case of Jordan

In: Energy Policy, Volume 180.

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Benjamin Schütze | 2023

Follow the Grid, Follow the Violence: The Project for a Transregional Mediterranean Electricity Ring

In: Middle East Critique 2023.

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Julia Gurol, Alke Jenss, Fabricio Rodríguez, Benjamin Schütze, Cita Wetterich | 2023

Authoritarian Power and Contestation beyond the State

In: Globalizations pp 1-14.

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Alke Jenss, Benjamin Schütze | 2023

Prefiguring Politics: Transregional Energy Infrastructures as a Lens for the Study of Authoritarian Practices

In: Globalizations pp 1-16.

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Benjamin Schütze | 2022

Why “Democracy Promotion” should play no role in a values-based German foreign policy in the MENA region

in: Orient II 2022, “Germany’s role in the MENA region: Between continuity and change”

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Benjamin Schütze | 2021

Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism: US and European Policy in Jordan

in: Cambridge Middle East Studies, Cambridge University Press

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Benjamin Schütze, Alke Jenss | 2021

Rethinking authoritarian power: The logistics space and authoritarian practices in and between secondary port cities of the Global South

in: International Studies Quarterly, 65:1, 82-94.

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Benjamin Schütze | 2020

Essential Readings on “Democracy Promotion”

in: Jadaliyya, Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI)

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Benjamin Schütze | 2019

Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism: US and European Policy in Jordan

Cambridge University Press, Middle East Studies series

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Benjamin Schütze | 2018

Marketing parliament: The constitutive effects of external attempts at parliamentary strengthening in Jordan

in: Cooperation and Conflict, 53:2, 237-258

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Benjamin Schütze | 2017

Simulating, marketing, and playing war: US–Jordanian military collaboration and the politics of commercial security

in: Security Dialogue, 48:5, 431-450

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