Christian Achrainer

Christian Achrainer is a PostDoc researcher at the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University (RUC), where he contributes to the Horizon Europe-funded SHAPEDEM-EU project designing localized EU democracy support strategies for Eastern/Southern Neighborhood regions. He concurrently works as a freelance analyst in Berlin bridging academia, politics, and civil society. Previously, he served as a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) EU-Middle East Forum (2009–2015) and operated as an independent consultant/lecturer in Cairo (2015–2020).

His research focuses on authoritarianism in Arab states (especially Egypt), democratization processes, human rights, and European/German foreign policy. He holds a PhD from Philipps-University Marburg, analyzing Egypt’s external alignment strategies (2013–2017) for regime sustainability, later published by Routledge.

Key Projects:

• SHAPEDEM-EU (2022–2025): EU democracy support policy design

Recent Activities:

• Participant in European International Studies Association Conference (EWIS 2023)
• Speaker at 'The entanglement of policy' workshop (April 2023)