Prof. Dr. Thomas Demmelhuber

 

Short biography

Thomas Demmelhuber is Professor of Middle East Politics and Society at the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and since 2015 Visiting Professor at the College of Europe (Natolin). Before he was Assistant Professor for Political Science at the University of Hildesheim (2012-2015). His PhD in 2008 on EU-Egyptian relations was awarded with the German Middle East Studies Association’s dissertation prize for best PhD in Middle Eastern studies. Demmelhuber’s research focuses on state, power and politics in the Middle East from a comparative perspective including international actors such as the European Union. Demmelhuber has published/edited numerous books, e.g. in 2018, he co-edited, together with Tobias Schumacher and Andreas Marchetti, The Routledge Handbook on European Neighbourhood Policy  and in 2020 (Paperback 2021) together with Marianne Kneuer a comprehensive volume on Authoritarian Gravity Centres: A Cross-Regional Study of Authoritarian Promotion and Diffusion. For more information on e.g. awards, third-party funding, research projects and services to the scientific community, click here. He is also involved in numerous academic associations and research institutes on advisory boards and boards of directors, for example as a board member (since 2018) of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO), as a member (since 2020) of the scientific advisory board of the Orient Institute in Beirut (OIB)  and as a member (since 2021) of the research advisory board of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. In 2024, he was appointed as a Fellow of the Bavarian Science Alliance for Peace, Conflict and Security Research.

 

Selected peer-reviewed publications (for a full list click here):

Die israelische Justizreform im Kontext der Verfassungsentwicklungen im Nahen Osten, in: Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, online first, 2024 (with Peter Lintl)

Autocracies and the temptation of sentimentality: repertoires of the past and contemporary meaning-making in the Gulf monarchies, in: Third World Quarterly, 2023 (online first) (with Antonia Thies)

Elite Networks and the Transregional Dimension of Authoritarianism. Sino-Emirati Relations in Times of a Global Pandemic, in: Journal of Contemporary China, 2022 (online first), 139/2023 (with Julia Gurol and Tobias Zumbrägel)

Temptations of Autocracy: How Saudi Arabia Influences and Attracts Its Neighbourhood, in: Journal of Arabian Studies, 1/2020 (with Tobias Zumbrägel)

Decentralisation as Authoritarian Upgrading? Evidence from Jordan and Morocco, in: The Journal of North African Studies, 2020 (online first), 2/2022 (with Erik Vollmann, Miriam Bohn and Roland Sturm)

Playing the Diversity Card: Saudi-Arabia’s Foreign Policy under the Salmans, in: The International Spectator, 4/2019

Decentralization in the Arab world: Conceptualizing the role of neopatrimonial networks, in: Mediterranean Politics, 2018 (online first), 4/2020 (with Roland Sturm and Erik Vollmann)

Playing the regional card: why and how authoritarian gravity centres exploit regional organizations, in: Third World Quarterly, 2018 (online first), 3/2019 (with Marianne Kneuer et al.)

Gravity centres of authoritarian rule: a conceptual approach, in: Democratization, 5/2016, (with Marianne Kneuer)

Monarchies and republics, state and regime, durability and fragility in view of the Arab spring, in: Journal of Arabian Studies, 2/2014 (with Claudia Derichs)

The EU and the Gulf monarchies: Normative Power Europe in search of a strategy, in: Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 3/2014 (with Christian Kaunert)