FAU CHREN Human Rights Colloquium with Maximilian Wegener: Authoritarianism across Borders: How Transnational Autocratization and Resistance Shape the Violation and Defence of Human Rights in East Africa

We are delighted to announce a FAU CHREN Human Rights Colloquium featuring Maximilian Wegener on 17 November 2026:

Authoritarianism across Borders: How Transnational Autocratization and Resistance Shape the Violation and Defence of Human Rights in East Africa
A FAU CHREN Colloquium with Dr Maximilian Wegener
17 November 2026, 6:15-7:30 pm

Abstract

This study investigates transnational autocratization in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) and its implications for both the top-down curtailment and bottom-up defence of human rights across borders. Drawing on in-depth field research and an abductive content analytical approach, it sheds light at on the contextual conditions, key mechanisms, central strategies, and human rights-related implications that characterize transnational autocratization, both in East Africa and beyond. This approach allows us to trace how regionally clustered autocratization materializes and to what extent human rights implications differ from state to state.

In a second step, the study introduces the concept of transnational resistance to adequately examine how civil society responds to autocratization and human rights abuse across borders. Drawing on interdisciplinary research on social movements, cross-border activism, mass protests, and the ‘glocalisation’ of human rights protection, it defines transnational resistance as a complex process of coordinated opposition to transnational autocratization and human rights abuse that is driven by local, yet regionally interconnected and cooperative networks of civil society. An investigation of transnational resistance in the East African context reveals both the structural prerequisites and the tactical repertoires of collective action and local contestation of authoritarian rule. As such, this project not only illuminates how transnational autocratization transforms human rights norms, institutions, and practices in a specific empirical context; it also speaks to concomitant theoretical debates regarding the potentials, limitations, and principal duty-bearers of human rights in contexts of transnational repression and authoritarianism across borders.

Speaker Biography

Dr Maximilian Wegener is a Postdoctoral Researcher affiliated with the interdisciplinary research consortium “Transforming Human Rights” and with the Institute of Political Science at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). As part of a team of researchers working with Professor Katrin Kinzelbach at the FAU Chair of Human Rights Politics, Maximilian researches a broad array of themes at the interface between empirical human rights research, Peace and Conflict Studies, and International Relations. Maximilian studied Political Science with a particular focus on Peace and Conflict Studies in Düsseldorf, Belfast, Tübingen, and Brisbane. In his doctoral project at Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, he subsequently examined both the escalation and de-escalation of group-selective mass violence. With a particular emphasis on Kenya (2007-2022), his dissertation investigated how societies on the brink of anti-civilian atrocity crimes, including potential genocide, manage to avert full-blown escalation despite major risk.  In both research and teaching, Maximilian continues to focus on armed conflicts, peace processes, and the (de-)escalation of mass violence with an empirical focus on sub-Saharan Africa. His current research projects revolve around the ideological-discursive justification of genocidal violence across space and time, the nexus between transnational autocratization and human rights violations, as well as the conditions and strategies of civil society resistance amidst an increasingly shrinking civic space.

📸 Disclaimer/Media Notice

Photos and/or videos may be taken during this event for FAU CHREN’s documentation and public outreach (e.g., website, social media). By attending, you consent to this use — unless you inform us otherwise in advance or during the event. If you do not wish to appear in photos or videos, please let the organizing team know in advance or upon arrival.

 ☑️ RSVP

If you are planning to attend, please reserve a place by email to  ben.graubner@fau.de.

We hope to see you at the event and would, of course, be happy to respond to any queries directed to the convenors or the Colloquia, janina.heaphy@fau.de and eva.m.pils@fau.de  or to humanrights@fau.de.