We are delighted to introduce the VW-Foundation funded project “Global autocratic collaboration in times of COVID-19: Game changer or business as usual in Sino-Gulf relations?”. The project will be implemented starting February 2021 by Tobias Zumbrägel together with Prof. Dr. Thomas Demmelhuber from the University of Erlangen and Julia Gurol from the University of Freiburg.
The project in a nutshell: While democratic backlash and a resurgence of autocracies have been identified by scholars since the 2000s,empirical evidence grows that the COVID-19 pandemic facilitates autocratization trends. This trend isvisible across the globe – regardless of whether the respective regimes are autocratic (e.g. Arabregion), hybrid (e.g. Latin America) or democratic (e.g. Europe).We argue that this development of fostering autocratic orderis not intrinsically national but reinforced externally. Similar to the ‘waves of democracy’ throughout the last century, this developmentis characterized by the promotion and diffusion of a certain model of political rule. This project explores the pathways, mechanisms, modes, scope and circumstances of the authoritarian surge and seeks to uncover its effects and repercussions for (trans-)regional power constellations in Sino-Gulf relations, asking.
The project duration is from February 2021 until August 2022. If you want to get further information please contact the project manager Tobias Zumbrägel.
