​Book Projects

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Mapping Security


The project aims at a more holistic analysis of present security/ terrorism discourses by implementing a multi-level analysis. It explores the interactions between (un)ethical behavior, including discriminating legal actions,  international politics, international military intervention, and ideology. It also looks at the impact of national security by actions of other states that are hard to influence but still nonetheless impact state-level security related issues. 
The project builds on my previous work on violence and terrorism, Middle East related works in preparation for publication as well as the inaugural lecture of the CHHC Violence and Order research module, analyzing the Syrian crisis.​
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​Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli: A Study in Comparative Political Theory – and Its Limits

​Since the rediscovery of Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), particularly in the West, scholars frequently suggest an intellectual cognation between fourteenth century Ibn Khaldun and sixteenth century Machiavelli (1469–1527). Yet, no study exists that substantially explores potential overlaps and similarities of their political theories. This study aims at filling the gap. The project’s main concern is threefold:
​While Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli are separated by more or less one and a half centuries as well as by culture and geography, pre- and early modern versions of statehood often show some structural similarities that seem to be independent of the particular cultural or religious contexts in which they emerge. Thus, first, the study contextualizes Ibn Khaldun’s and Machiavelli’s writings to uncover the particular problems they respond to. Second, it aims at exploring whether some similarities in their ideas are rather the outcome of general rules of politics or whether they imply a deeper intellectual cognation.  ​Third, it scrutinizes where and how these two major thinkers differs based on their different historic and cultural experiences, the most obvious difference being the impossibility to trace any republican thinking in fourteenth century eastern Mediterranean political thinking.  Thus, the study is as much interested in transcultural comparability as in its limitations. The study focuses on core concepts both for political science and theory more generally that are significant for Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli. ​
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It explores their methods, chiefly in relation to their concepts of history. Moreover, the study explores the authors’ conceptualization of power or governance more generally and their views, perhaps the study’s most controversial issue, on religion’s impact on the political. Because both thinkers are frequently attributed with modernity, it critically investigates what kind of modernity could be ascribed to them. Finally, the study asks how the findings relate to contemporary discourses and issues in political theory.

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Other Projects

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Theories of Private Property in Transcultural Perspective
The private property project marks a return to a project that is situated in the history of political thought tradition. It explores premodern (medieval) Islamic theories of property in comparison to dominant Western discourses,  particularly associated with John Locke.  
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Ḥākimiyya Contested: Past Experiences and Contemporary Debates on the Quest for an Islamic State
​In contemporary Islamist discourses, particularly in the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi spectrum, one can notice a growing demand for an Islamic state, ordered in accordance with what is understood as ḥākimiyya, the governance of God. Disagreement, however, exists about two issues: first, it is contested whether it is necessary to introduce such a political and social order top-down or whether it is advisable to educate the Muslim believers first (bottom-up). The second contestation concerns the related idea of a past existence of such a ḥākimiyya society that has ceased to exist, narrated as past utopian Golden Age that has to be restored.
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Narratives of Belonging in Twentieth Century Islamic Political Thought
The paper explores a variety of discourses in twentieth century Sunni and Shi’i political thought with emphasis on “identity” and “belonging.” The chapter discusses ideological transitions from colonial to post-colonial rule and the particular tensions between different, competing movements. The chapter also discusses the transition from a pan-Islamic narrative to a global jihad narrative that dominates public discourses at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The chapter’s main focus lies on the exploration of differences within that can be describes as tensions between traditional forces and counter-movements. Key topics are 1) Similarities and differences between Sunni and Shi’i discourses; 2) Traditionalist movements that reject change and whatever is perceived as “Western” and/or “Modern”; 3) Reformist movements that appreciate “Western” and/or “Modern” ideas, and 4) Golden Age narratives that aim at the (utopian) goal of (re-)establishing a caliphate or other versions of an Islamic state.
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Order Contested: Origins of Violence in Premodern Eastern and Western Mediterranean Discourses
Order, at any given time, at least in most instances, is an expression of a status quo. Discontent about the existing status quo usually emerges, to invoke Enrique Dussel, if a (larger) section of the populace ceased to regard the existing order as ethically legitimate. Formerly legitimate coercion, then, is perceived as illegitimate violence; the existing order is perceived as disorder. This conflict of perception also implies a conflict over legality and legitimacy that may trigger a circle of violence and counter-violence or, depending on perception, a circle of coercion and counter-violence—or vice versa.
The paper analyzes these dynamics in premodern eastern and western Mediterranean discourses in which the ethical standards depend primarily on religious ethics, whether in expressed in Islam or Christianity inspired discourses. Because the same religious texts are employed to legitimize the status quo as well as critiquing it, the contestation over order and disorder, legitimate coercion and illegitimate violence, turns into a problem of creative exegesis. The paper argues that, although most arguments for or against the (il)legitimacy of the status quo are dressed in religious language and religious ethics, the underlying conflicts are seldom of a (purely) religious nature, but concern problems of political (in)justice and exclusion.