In the summer term 2026, Benjamin Schuetze, Charlotte Mueller and Elia El Khazen teach a seminar at the University College Freiburg (UCF) on energy politics in the MENA region.
This course provides an introduction to contemporary energy politics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Given the MENA region’s central role in global fossil fuel markets, its role in efforts at energy transition is crucial to explore, particularly in the context of the need for a socially just response to climate breakdown. The course explores the political forces driving efforts at expanding renewable energies (REs) in the region, while also examining the persistence of fossil fuel reliance despite these efforts.
At the end of the course, students will have gained a critical understanding of the role of transregionally connected authoritarian elites, foreign private (investment) companies, and international financial institutions in shaping energy policy and of how different social movements in the region resist imperialism and fossil capitalism. By focusing on energy colonialism and how RE projects are integrated into existing global capitalist structures, the course encourages students to critically assess how such projects may perpetuate rather than challenge the very structures that have contributed to the climate crisis.