Dr. Katharina Nicolai

Dr. Katharina Nicolai

Assistant Professor

Chair of Middle East Politics and Society

Room: Room 00.015
Kochstraße 4
91054 Erlangen

Office Hours

please contact via e-mail

Dr. Katharina Nicolai has been an assistant professor at the Chair of Middle East Politics and Society (Prof. Dr. Thomas Demmelhuber) at FAU Erlangen–Nuremberg since April 2023. In her role as program coordinator, she oversees the Master’s program in Middle Eastern Studies. Before assuming her current position, she worked as a research associate at the Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE) from 2018 to 2023.

  • 2024 – PhD in political science, “The Emerald Kingdom: Environmental Sustainability, Authoritarian Resilience, and Foreign Policy Dominance in Morocco.”
    • Recipient of the DAVO Dissertation Prize 2024
    • 2018-2020 – Doctoral scholarship “Trajectories of Change” funded by the ZEIT Foundation
    • 2020-2023 – Doctoral scholarship awarded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)
  • since 2023 – Assistant professor, Chair of Politics and Society of the Middle East, FAU Erlangen–Nürnberg
  • 2018–2023 – Research associate, Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE)
  • 2018 – Master’s thesis: “The Makhzan’s Garden: Cooptation and the Ambiguity of Environmental Politics in Morocco.”
    • Recipient of the Christoph Schumann Memorial Prize 2018
  • before 2018 – Studies in Political Science, Islamic Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies in Heidelberg (Germany), Leuven (Belgium), Marburg (Germany), Rabat (Morocco), and Erlangen (Germany).

  • Environmental Politics and Political Ecology in West Asia and North Africa (WANA)
  • Democracy and Autocracy Research
  • Soft Power & Legitimation
  • Comparative Politics (regional focus WANA)
  • Transitional Justice
  • Political Culture and Cultural Politics in the Maghreb Region

  • Nicolai, K., & Vollmann, E. (2025). The king’s speeches: environmental sustainability as a discursive legitimation project in autocracies. Evidence from Morocco. Democratization, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2025.2524855 (peer-reviewed)
  • Nicolai, K. (2025). Monarchien: Nation, Legitimation und Herrschaftssicherung. In: Demmelhuber, T., Scharfenort, P.D.N. (eds) Die Arabische Halbinsel. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-70217-8_7
  • Nicolai, K. u. A. Wüst (2022). Cultural diplomacy and the reconfiguration of soft power: Evidence from Morocco, Mediterranean Politics, DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2022.2033513 (peer-reviewed)
  • Nicolai, K., et al. (2021). Germany (country survey). In: Stephanie Müssig, Egdūnas Račius, Samim Akgönül, Ahmet Alibašić, Jørgen S. Nielsen, Oliver Scharbrodt (eds.), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Volume 13 (2021). Leiden: Brill.
  • Nicolai, K. (2020). A Green Gambit: The Development of Environmental Foreign Policy in Morocco, The Journal of North African Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13629387.2020.1865931 (peer-reviewed)
  • Nicolai, K. (2020). Sustainable development and environmental policy in the Middle East and North Africa. In ORIENT (Vol. 61, pp. 36-44). Berlin: Deutsches Orient-Institut.
  • Nicolai, K., et al. (2019). Germany (country survey). In: Oliver Scharbrodt, Samim Akgönül, Ahmet Alibašić, Jørgen S. Nielsen, Egdūnas Račius (eds.), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Volume 11. Leiden: Brill.