PhD Projects
PhD projects
Information for students interested in a PhD project
Please consider the following conditions/requirements:
General conditions: A master degree in political science or in an intersection between political science and Middle Eastern studies is required (final grade at least 2,0 – acc.to German grading scale; i.e. “excellent”).
Potential topics: You should make sure that the topic of your dissertation matches the research interests of the chair.
Preparation of a proposal: You should hand in a proposal of approximately 10 pages that captures your research question and its scientific relevance, an overview of the methodology you are planning to adapt as well as possible outcomes of your research.
As a doctoral candidate, you are expected to submit a formal application of your dissertation project at the FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, sign a supervision agreement, and participate in the research colloquium (weekly event during the semester). Once every semester, doctoral candidates should present the state of their research in the colloquium.
Interested and all requirements fulfilled? Get in touch with us via email: katharina.nicolai@fau.de
Current PhD projects
Jan Mewes: “Saudi go home! – Saudi Arabian interventions in the Yemeni Civil War and implications for a peace process”
Jonas Knoblach: “Legitimation Strategies of Turkish and Tunisian Political Parties from 2001-2020”
Antonia Thies: “Sentimentality and State-Society Relations: The Consolidation of Collective Identities in Gulf Monarchies””
Laura Schuhn: “The Guardians of the Twitterverse.”
Andrea Klinger: “‘Us against Them’ in the Name of the French Nation”
Completed PhD projects
2023: Dr. Miriam Bohn: The Autocrat’s Guide to the Periphery. Fostering Elite Cohesion Between the Center and the Subnational Levels in Jordan
2022: Dr. Aline de Oliveira Alencar: Ennahda from within: from Political Islam to Muslim Democracy
2021: Dr. Christina Hartmann: Changes in Jihadi Discourse in the Wake of the Islamic State
2020: Dr. Tobias Zumbrägel: The delusion of being eco-friendly: Environmental policy making and the quest of legitimation in the oil-rich Arab Gulf monarchies
2020: Dr. Nina Nowar: Local Normative Spaces. Dynamiken der Aushandlung von Identität und Moral im öffentlichen Raum von Tunis
2019: Dr. Matthias Sailer: Über die außenpolitischen Interessen der arabischen Golfstaaten gegenüber Ägypten seit 2011
2017: Dr. Ziad Koussa: The Arab Revolutionary Uprisings in Egypt: An Analysis of David Harvey’s framework of Accumulation by Dispossession
2015: Dr. Christian Wolff: Freiheit, Bürger und Staat: die Entwicklung libaralen Denkens in der ägyptischen Muslimbruderschaft (supervised by Prof. Dr. Christoph Schumann, Prof. Dr. Thomas Philipp)
2013: Dr. Mahmoud Jaraba: Moderation or Transformation: Explaining the Different Ideological Trajectories of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Turkish Justice and Development Party (supervised by Prof. Dr. Christoph Schumann)
2012: Dr. Meltem Kulaçatan: Geschlechterdiskurse in den Medien: Türkisch-deutsche Presse in Europa (supervised by Prof. Dr. Christoph Schumann, Prof. Dr. Mathias Rohe)