Research Advice Teaching Debate
“Democracy, human rights, and academic freedom can never be taken for granted, they need to be demanded, defended, and protected every day.”
Research
My research lies at the intersection of comparative authoritarianism, international relations, and regional studies of Western Asia and North Africa. My research interests include:
shrinking civic space, civil society repression and resilience, authoritarianism, authoritarian resilience and regime decision-making, academic freedom, protest diffusion and repression, democratization and transitions after conflict and regime change, democracy and civil society support, foreign and development policy, fieldwork safety, ethics and methods, and assessing human rights violations.
Authoritarianism
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In my PhD dissertation, I explored the impact of protests on elite threat perceptions and decision-making in authoritarian regimes in Morocco and Egypt during the Arab Uprisings 2011.
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"Change or Charade? Morocco's constitutional reform process 2011" in: ORIENT German journal for Politics, Economics, and Culture of the Middle East (2016) vol. 3, pp. 50-55. Find the article here.
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"No Rivals to the King. The Limits to Political Reform in Morocco's 'Enlightened Authoritarianism'" with Isabelle Werenfelsin: SWP Comments 2017/C 17, May 2017. Find the paper here.
Academic Freedom
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The AFi is the first global time-series dataset gathering and providing data on the quality of academic freedom on a country level.
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"University Autonomy Decline: Causes, Responses, and Implications for Academic Freedom", Routledge UK, 2022 – with Kirsten R. Lyer and Janika Spannagel. Find the book here.
"Researching Academic Freedom: Guidelines and Sample Studies", FAU University Press, Erlangen, 2020 – with Katrin Kinzelbach and Janika Spannagel. Find the book here. -
"Global data on the freedom indispensable for scientific research: towards a reconciliation of academic reputation and academic freedom"– with Katrin Kinzelbach and Janika Spannagel, in: The International Journal of Human Rights (2021). Find the article here.
"Free Research in Fearful Times: Conceptualising an Index to Monitor Academic Freedom" - with Jannis Grimm, in: Inter-disciplinary Political Studies (2017) vol. 1, pp. 42-75. Find the article here.
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"Free Universities: Putting the Academic Freedom Index into Action" with Katrin Kinzelbach, Janika Spannagel and Robert Quinn, GPPi Policy Report. Find the report here.
“Declining Academic Freedom in the Maghreb” for the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies of the Maghreb Paper Series. Paper available here.
“Standing up for Academic Freedom” for the Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation. Essay available here.
Fieldwork
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"Safer Field Research in the Social Sciences. A Guide to Human and Digital Security in Hostile Environments", SAGE UK, 2020 – with: Jannis Grimm; Kevin Koehler; Ellen Lust und Isabell Schierenbeck. Find the book here.
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“Enabling Fieldwork in difficult environments” with Berit Bliesemann de Guevara and John Heathershaw for: Academic Freedom & Internationalisation Working Group Primer. Find the paper here.
Democracy & Transition
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"Dilemma of simultaneity" – with Wolfgang Merkel in: Oxford Handbook of Economic, Political and Social Transformation, Raj Kollmorgen, Wolfgang Merkel, Hans-Jürgen Wagener (edts), pp. 471-479, Oxford University Press. Find the chapter here.
"Dilemmata der Gleichzeitigkeit” - with Wolfgang Merkel in: Handbuch zur Transformationsforschung, Raj Kollmorgen, Wolfgang Merkel, Hans-Jürgen Wagener (Hrsg.), 2015, pp. 517-526, VS Verlag. Find the chapter here (German only).
"Security of the Public Sphere: Meeting place in an area of tension between control, freedom and democracy.” - with Jonas Hagmannin: Bulletin zur Schweizer Sicherheitspolitik 2013. Find the chapter here (german only).
Shrinking Civic Space
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“Resilience support for CSOs in the WANA region” 2025 Study for Heinrich Böll Foundation. Download here.
“Shrinking spaces in the Middle East and North Africa: supporting resilience of civil society” Policy Brief (17/2023) for: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). Find the Brief here.