Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Position:
Senior Researcher
Email:
benjamin.schuetze [at] abi.uni-freiburg.de
Phone:
+49 (0)761 888 78 30
Twitter:
Areas of Research:
external interventions and 'democracy promotion', transregional authoritarian practices, economic liberalisation, military collaboration, renewable energies
Regional Focus:
Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Publications
Berichte, Studien, Policy Paper, Workingpaper
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
In order to support democratic ideals of socio-economic justice, public participation and representation, established efforts at "democracy promotion" in the MENA must be abandoned. The promotion of procedural democracy has proven to be reconcilable with socio-economic authoritarianisms and presents no challenge to authoritarian power structures.
2022
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Jenss, Dr. Alke / Dr. Benjamin Schütze
Globalizations
2022
Herausgeberschaft (Wiss.)
Jenss, Dr. Alke / Dr. Fabricio Rodríguez / Dr. Benjamin Schütze / Cita, M.A. (Universität Freiburg) Wetterich / Dr. Julia Gurol
Globalizations
2022
Beitrag Sammelband/ Buchkapitel (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Charles Tripp and the comparative politics of the Middle East: Power, resistance, ideology and the state
As one of the main recipient states of aid worldwide, and as a close ally of the US and the EU, aid dependence and external intervention are some of the key themes in Jordanian politics. It is hard to find a major Jordanian state institution that is not in one way or another the recipient of US and/or European attempts at capacity building. Further, Jordan has participated in various interventions abroad – in UN peacekeeping forces, but also in military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
2022
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (BJMES)
This article explores contemporary efforts at Arab-Israeli normalization in Jordan. By mid-2011 the escalating violence in Syria had effectively closed the overland trade route connecting Europe and the Arab Gulf via Syria and Jordan. Despite the emergence of an alternative route via the Suez Canal, several international and national NGOs have since – building on previous attempts at Arab-Israeli normalization – attempted to establish a transit trade route via Israel and Jordan.
2022
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin / Dr. Julia Gurol
International Quarterly for Asian Studies (IQAS)
From discrimination against Chinese-read migrant workers, via intraregional competition for China’s favour, to collaboration on infrastructural megaprojects, vaccine development and digital surveillance techniques: Arab-Chinese relations in times of COVID-19 are complex and multi-layered. Yet, established regime-centric approaches often fail to see this complexity by almost exclusively focusing on questions of authoritarian regime collaboration.
2022
Beitrag Sammelband/ Buchkapitel (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin / Delphine Weil-Accardo
La "société civile" dans l'action transnationale au concret
2021
Online-Publikation, Blog-Artikel, op-ed
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin / Camille Abescat / Emma Empociello / Simon Mangon
Noria Research
Jordan has long been one of the highest recipients of US and European “democracy promotion” funding. Severe crackdowns on domestic opposition forces in 2020 and during the royal feud in April 2021, however, have revealed just how flimsy the regime’s commitments to democracy remain, and the extent to which the often celebrated stability of the country remains premised on coercion and oppression.
In his book Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Benjamin Schuetze investigates what external “democracy promoters” actually do in Jordan.
2021
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin / Prof. Dana El Kurd
Democracy and Autocracy - The International Aftermath of the Arab Spring
The United States features prominently in the authors’ exchange between Dana El Kurd and Benjamin Schuetze. Dana El Kurd’s book, Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine,
is a study of international involvement in Palestinian politics after the Oslo Accords. She demonstrates
how the U.S. supported local elites whose interests diverged from those of the population. This led to
increased authoritarianism and the polarization and demobilization of Palestinian society.
2021
Monographie (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Appearing against the backdrop of Jordan's remarkable levels of authoritarian stability and accounting for Jordan being one of the highest recipients of US and European 'democracy promotion' funding, Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism examines what external 'democracy promoters' actually do when they promote democracy.
2021
Berichte, Studien, Policy Paper, Workingpaper
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
قدم هذا التقرير نظرة عامة على منشورات مختارة حول العلاقة بين السياسة والطاقة. ثم ناقش بعض
الطرق التي تعمل بها التقنيات والبنى التحتية المختلفة، وطرق التمويل، وأشكال المعرفة في التأثيرات
الاجتماعية والاقتصادية للطاقة الشمسية. أخيراً، قدمت أمثلة مختارة، من أجل إظهار اعتماد الطاقة
الشمسية على السياق.
2021
Berichte, Studien, Policy Paper, Workingpaper
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
This report discusses the socio-economic effects of solar energy in the Middle East and North Africa. It provides an overview over select literature on the energy-politics nexus and then discusses some of the ways in which different technologies and infrastructures, modes of financing, and forms of knowledge mediate solar energy’s socio-economic effects. Finally, it presents select empirical snapshots, in order to demonstrate solar energy’s context-dependence.
2021
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Jenss, Dr. Alke / Dr. Benjamin Schütze
International Studies Quarterly
https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaa083
How to rethink authoritarian power in ways that better account for authoritarian connections beyond nation-state boundaries? By reconceptualizing the context in which to analyze authoritarian power, we bring to light transregional authoritarian connections between the secondary port cities Aqaba/Jordan and Buenaventura/Colombia.
2021
Online-Publikation, Blog-Artikel, op-ed
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
fifteeneightyfour, the blog of Cambridge University Press
While Jordan is one of the main targets of US and European attempts at ‘democracy promotion’, it also demonstrates a remarkably stable authoritarian system. Existing literature on ‘democracy promotion’ however mostly fails to see a connection between authoritarian reinforcement and external efforts at moral intervention. The dominant approaches to the study of ‘democracy promotion’ widely suffer from a narrow focus on developing policy recommendations and/or from a lack of empirical research.
2020
Online-Publikation, Blog-Artikel, op-ed
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Jadaliyya
Brief summary and presentation of 'Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism: US and European Policy in Jordan' (CUP, 2019).
2020
Online-Publikation, Blog-Artikel, op-ed
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Jadaliyya, Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI)
External attempts at “democracy promotion” are one of the defining features of global liberalism. A core principle guiding this Essential Reading is that the topic at hand needs to be unequivocally situated against the backdrop of a critical analysis of liberal thought. A main shortcoming of much of the mainstream literature on “democracy promotion” is the tendency to ignore related fundamental questions.
2020
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Jenss, Dr. Alke / Dr. Benjamin Schütze
International Studies Quarterly
10.1093/isq/sqaa083
How to rethink authoritarian power in ways that better account for authoritarian connections beyond nation-state boundaries? By reconceptualizing the context in which to analyze authoritarian power, we bring to light transregional authoritarian connections between the secondary port cities Aqaba/Jordan and Buenaventura/Colombia.
2020
Monographie (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Appearing against the backdrop of Jordan's remarkable levels of authoritarian stability and accounting for Jordan being one of the highest recipients of US and European 'democracy promotion' funding, Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism examines what external 'democracy promoters' actually do when they promote democracy.
2019
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
iz3w
2019
Online-Publikation, Blog-Artikel, op-ed
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Jadaliyya
Jordan currently ranks among the highest recipients of US foreign aid worldwide, both in absolute terms and particularly so on a per capita basis. Besides military and economic support, Jordan has over the past years also been the target of a whole plethora of US democracy-promotion interventions. As a result, there are probably only a few Jordanian state institutions that have not in one way or another been the target of external attempts at some form of capacity building and institutional engineering.
2018
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Cooperation and Conflict
10.1177/0010836718768632
The Jordanian parliament is widely recognised as a patronage provider and means for authoritarian upgrading. Despite, or precisely because of this, it has over the past years become a linchpin of US and European attempts at parliamentary strengthening. The parliament’s highly marginalised position notwithstanding, this article suggests that such efforts provide us with an insightful opportunity to better understand the reconfiguration of authoritarian power via external intervention in the name of democracy.
2018
Beiträge zu Konferenzen
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin / Dr. André Bank
Transregional migration, mobility and forced displacement: Moving beyond methodological nationalism
2017
Beiträge zu Konferenzen
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
ALMA research series
2017
Online-Publikation, Blog-Artikel, op-ed
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Security Dialogue blog
While Jordan – also in light of the threat posed by the so-called ‘Islamic State’ in neighbouring Iraq and Syria – has become one of the largest recipients of US military aid worldwide, research on the nature and effects of US-Jordanian military collaboration remains scarce. Funded through US$ 99 million in US military assistance, the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Centre (KASOTC), located just north of Amman, lies at the centre of the latter.
2017
Zeitschriftenartikel (Wiss.)
Schütze, Dr. Benjamin
Security Dialogue
10.1177/0967010617717620
The King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) was financed and established by the US Department of Defense, is operated by a US private business, and is owned by the Jordanian army. It not only offers a base for the training of international Special Forces and Jordanian border guards, but also for military adventure holidays, corporate leadership programs, and stunt training for actors.
2017