Christian Achrainer is a PostDoc-Researcher at Roskilde University (RUC), where he is involved in a Horizon Europe project aimed at conceptualizing and pilot-testing an innovative, localized, more inclusive, and less Eurocentric approach to EU democracy support in the EU’s Eastern and Southern Neighborhood. Besides, he is as a freelance analyst in Berlin, working at the interface between academia, politics/political consultation, and civil society. Christian was a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations’ (DGAP) EU-Middle East Forum (2009-2015) and worked as an independent consultant and lecturer in Cairo (2015-2020). In his work, he primarily focuses on authoritarianism, democratization, and human rights in Arab countries, and on European and German foreign affairs. Christian obtained his PhD from Philipps-University Marburg. In his thesis, he analyzed how the Egyptian regime utilized its external alignments to sustain its grip to power in the period 2013-2017.