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 center 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. 

Focus & Topics: 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. 

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zumbraegel [at] carpo-bonn.org

Selected Publications

• & Gurol, J.; Schmidt, M. (March 2021): Reconfigurations in West Asia and North Africa. CARPO Research Forum 2020 – Conference Report, CARPO Study 10. Online available.
• & Thomas Demmelhuber (2020): Temptations of Autocracy: How Saudi Arabia Influences and Attracts Its Neighbourhood, in: Journal of Arabian Studies 20:1, pp. 51-71.
• (June 2020) The Looming Climate Peril. Sustainable Strategies and Environmental Activism in the Middle East and North Africa, CARPO Sustainability Study 01 . Available online.
• (2020): ‘Beyond greenwashing: Sustaining power through sustainability in the Arab Gulf monarchies’, in: Orient 61:1, pp. 28-35.
• (2020): Kingdom of gravity: Autocratic promotion and diffusion in Saudi Arabia, in: Kneuer, Marianne / Demmelhuber, Thomas (ed.): Authoritarian Gravity Centres: A cross-regional study of authoritarian promotion and diffusion, Routledge: London, pp. 55-88.