Overline: Online Seminar

Headline: Renewable Energies, Renewed Authoritarianisms? The Political Economy of Solar Energy in the Middle East and North Africa

“Renewable Energies, Renewed Authoritarianisms? The Political Economy of Solar Energy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)”, by Dr. Benjamin Schuetze, Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute (ABI), Freiburg

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Abstract

Countries throughout the MENA are pursuing ambitious targets for a transition from fossil fuels to renewables. While the latter’s distributed nature offers a possibility for more democratic, inclusive and independent (energy) politics, transregionally connected authoritarian elites attempt to transform it into concentrated forms of political and economic power. Focusing on efforts at transregional electricity grid integration between the EU and the MENA, and on the rapid expansion, but then sudden halt of renewable energy projects in Jordan, this presentation explores how efforts at energy transition reshape established authoritarian practices.

The Online Seminar will be facilitated by IASS Fellow Dr Natalie Koch

About the speaker

Benjamin Schuetze is a senior researcher at the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute (ABI) in Freiburg, and a member in the Young Academy for Sustainability Research at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). He has recently been admitted to the DFG Emmy Noether-Programme and is in the process of establishing a junior research group on the topic of this presentation. His research focuses on the political economy of renewable energies in the MENA, and on US and European attempts at ‘democracy promotion’. He is the author of Promoting Democracy, Reinforcing Authoritarianism: US and European Policy in Jordan (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and of journal articles with Security Dialogue, Cooperation & Conflict and International Studies Quarterly.