Associate Fellows
Dr. Tobias Zumbrägel is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the department for Human Geography at Heidelberg University. Prior to this, he worked at CARPO as well as at the Cluster for Excellence ‘Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS)’ at the University of Hamburg, where he is also an Associate Fellow. He studied History, Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies in Cologne, Tuebingen and Cairo and holds a Ph.D. from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is the author of Political Power and Environmental Sustainability in Gulf Monarchies (Palgrave 2022).
Tobias publishes regularly in international journals and other media outlets. He further provides political analysis on political and socioeconomic developments in the Middle East (with a particular focus on the Gulf region) and is consulted by German and international political institutions and organizations. His regional foci are the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt.
environmental degradation and climate policy in the Arab world; international relations and security studies in West Asia and the Arabian Peninsula (WAAP); political legitimation and legitimacy in non-democratic regimes
(2024): ‘Eco-tech odyssey. The political craftsmanship of a green technostate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’, in: Middle East Critique. Available online.
& Julia Gurol, Thomas Demmelhuber (2022): ‘Elite networks and the transregional dimension of authoritarianism. Sino-Emirati relations in times of a global pandemic’, in: Journal of Contemporary China 23/139, pp. 138-151. Available online.
(2022): Environmental Sustainability and Political Power in Gulf Monarchies, London.
(2022): ‘In search of legitimation. Environmental policy making in Saudi Arabia’, in: Mark Thompson & Neil Quillian (eds.): Governance and Domestic Policymaking in Saudi Arabia. Transforming Society, Economics, Politics and Culture, London, pp. 225–256.
(June 2020): The Looming Climate Peril. Sustainable Strategies and Environmental Activism in the Middle East and North Africa, CARPO Sustainability Study 01. Available online.
