PhD Project

Laura Schuhn, doctoral candidate at the Chair of Middle East Politics and Society, presented the results of her research last week at the regional 2025 NASPAA conference at the KAPSARC School for Public Policy (KSPP) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In her doctoral project, Laura Schuhn examines how citizen...

“Vietnam and Cuba as revolutionary role-models? Debates among the Arab Left since 1967” This new project examines the political and ideological orientations of the Arab Left after the crushing defeat by Israel in June 1967 in respect to its views of other „Third World“ revolutionary movem...

New Middle Eastern Regionalism: Arab-Israeli Normalisation and Shifting Paradigms of a Region Michael Nuding The norms that have historically shaped regionalism in the Middle East are currently undergoing a profound transformation. The ongoing Arab-Israeli normalization initiatives exemplify a not...

Saudi go home! - Saudi Arabian interventions in the Yemeni Civil War and implications for a peace process Jan Mewes Despite having lost some of its intensity, the ongoing civil war in Yemen still is a major military conflict and a grave humanitarian crisis. Causes and possible resolution appear as...

Legitimation Strategies of Turkish and Tunisian Political Parties from 2001-2020 Jonas Knoblach Over the past two decades, Turkey and Tunisia have been seen as potential role models for the democratisation process in the MENA-region. Due to the authoritarian drift under Erdoğan and Saied, this ass...

Sentimentality and State-Society Relations: The Consolidation of Collective Identities in Gulf Monarchies Antonia Thies Antonia's research project examines the forms and functions of sentimentality in the consolidation of collective identities using the example of selected Gulf monarchies (Saudi A...

The Guardians of the Twitterverse. Narratives of Climate Change in the Saudi Twittersphere Laura Schuhn Under the umbrella of Vision 2030, the Saudi government makes efforts to develop more transparent, accountable, and responsive government agencies and to strengthen the participation and inclus...

'Us against Them' in the Name of the French Nation: Discursive Practices of Affective Polarization during the 2017 and 2022 Election Campaigns and the Temptation of Sentimentality as a Challenge to Liberal Democracy Andrea Klinger Against the backdrop of an ongoing third wave of autocratization u...