Dr. Tim Zajontz
Profil
Tim Zajontz is Interim Professor in International Relations at the Department for Political Science where he covers for Chair Professor Sandra Destradi. He previously worked in the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh and taught at the universities of St Andrews, Dresden and Stellenbosch. He earned a PhD from the School of International Relations at St Andrews where he worked under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Dr. Ian Taylor on the political economy and governance of Chinese-financed infrastructure projects across Africa. His PhD research was funded by the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Zajontz is Research Fellow in the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at Stellenbosch University as well as Research Associate in the Second Cold War Observatory, a global research collective which is committed to developing nuanced understandings of how great power rivalry influences and shapes societies, economies, and ecologies worldwide. He is also one of the coordinators of the Collaborative Research Group ‚African Politics and International Relations‘ of the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS). He has previously worked in advisory positions in German and EU politics.
His research centres around Africa’s international relations and political economy, with a particular focus on Southern and Eastern Africa as well as on Africa-China and Africa-EU relations. His current research interests are infrastructure politics and the political economy of competing connectivity initiatives, especially China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment and the EU’s Global Gateway. He is furthermore interested in dynamics of sovereign indebtedness and dependency and conceptual questions related to structure-agency dialectics interactions, economic imperialisms, late neoliberalism and the production of space in international relations. Together with Dr. Muhidin Shangwe from the University of Dar es Salaam, Zajontz has recently researched the coloniality of contemporary geopolitics in East Africa as part of a tandem project funded by Freiburg’s „De/Coloniality Now“ research initiative. Zajontz has conducted research, amongst others, in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Curriculum Vitae
- since 04/2025 Interim Professor in International Relations; University of Freiburg, Department of Political Science, Chair for International Relations
- 10/2023 – 03/2025 Lecturer in International Relations and Global Political Economy; University of Freiburg, Department of Political Science, Chair for International Relations (Prof. Dr. Sandra Destradi)
- Since 01/2020 Research Fellow in the Centre for International and Comparative Politics, Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
- 04/2023 – 09/2023 Lecturer in International Relations and Global Political Economy, TUD Dresden University of Technology, Institute of Political Science, Chair for International Politics (Prof. Dr. Anna Holzscheiter)
- 10/2021 – 09/2022 Lecturer in International Relations and Global Political Economy, University of Freiburg, Department of Political Science, Chair for International Relations (Prof. Dr. Sandra Destradi)
- 07/2020 – 07/2021 Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the project ‘African Governance and Space: Transport Corridors, Border Towns and Port Cities in Transition (AFRIGOS)’, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, UK, Funded through a European Research Council Advanced Grant, Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Paul Nugent
- 03/2020 – 01/2021 Associate Lecturer, School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, UK
- 2015 – 2020 PhD Candidate, School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, UK – Title of PhD dissertation: The Chinese Infrastructural Fix in Africa: A Strategic-Relational Analysis of Zambia’s “Road Bonanza” and the Rehabilitation of TAZARA, Several research stays in Tanzania and Zambia, Scholarships: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Friedrich Ebert Foundation
- 01/2015 – 12/2017 Research Associate in the Centre for International and Comparative Politics
Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa - 2014 – 2016 Associate Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
- 01/2011 – 10/2012 M.A. in International Studies (2nd leg), Stellenbosch University, South Africa – Thesis title: Regionalism in theory and practice: The transformative potential of civil society in Southern Africa, Scholarship: Friedrich Ebert Foundation
- 08/2010 – 12/2010 M.A. in International Studies (1st leg), Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)/Bjørknes University College, Oslo, Norway, Scholarship: Friedrich Ebert Foundation
- 10/2007 – 07/2010 B.A. in Political Science and Public Law, University of Heidelberg, Germany, Scholarship: Friedrich Ebert Foundation
- 09/2009 – 01/2010 Erasmus mobility programme, University of Leuven, Belgium
Forschung & Lehre
Publikationen
For a comprehensive list of publications, please follow this link.
- Zajontz, Tim, Pádraig Carmody, Mandira Bagwandeen and Anthony Leysens (eds.) 2024. Africa’s Railway Renaissance: The Role and Impact of China. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Zajontz, Tim 2023. The Political Economy of China’s Infrastructure Development in Africa: Capital, State Agency, Debt. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Zajontz, Tim 2025. ‘Locating Africa in the Second Cold War: The geopolitical economy of Kenyan polyalignment’, Third World Quarterly.
- Zajontz, Tim 2024. ‘Seamless imaginaries, territorialized realities: the regional politics of corridor governance in Southern Africa’, Territory, Politics, Governance 12(8): 1073-1094, https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2022.2092205
- Schindler, Seth, Ilias Alami, Jessica DiCarlo, Nicholas Jepson, Steve Rolf, Mustafa Kemal Bayırbağ, Loius Cyuzuzo, Meredith DeBoom, Alireza F. Farahani, Imogen T. Liu, Hannah McNicol, Julie T. Miao, Philip Nock, Gilead Teryi, Maximiliano Facundo Vila Seoane, Kevin Ward, Tim Zajontz and Yawei Zhao 2024. ‘The Second Cold War: US-China Competition for Centrality in Infrastructure, Digital, Production Finance Networks’. Geopolitics 29(4): 1083-1120, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2023.2253432.
- van Wieringen, Kjeld and Tim Zajontz 2023. ‚From Loan-Financed to Privatised Infrastructure? Tracing China’s Turn Towards Public–Private Partnerships in Africa‘, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 52(3): 434–463, https://doi.org/10.1177/18681026231188140.
- Carmody, Pádraig, Zajontz, Tim and Reboredo, Ricardo 2022. ‘From “debt diplomacy” to donorship? China’s changing role in global development’, Global Political Economy 1(2): 198–217, https://doi.org/10.1332/UZHW7185.
- Zajontz, Tim 2022. ‘”Win-win” contested: negotiating the privatisation of Africa’s Freedom Railway with the “Chinese of today”‘, Journal of Modern African Studies 60(1): 111-134, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X21000446.
- Chiyemura, Frangton, Elisa Gambino and Tim Zajontz 2022. ‘Infrastructure and the politics of African state agency: shaping the Belt and Road Initiative in East Africa’, Chinese Political Science Review 8(1): 105-131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-022-00214-8.
- Zajontz, Tim 2022. ‘Debt, distress, dispossession: towards a critical political economy of Africa’s financial dependency’, Review of African Political Economy 49(171): 173-183, https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2021.1950669.
- Carmody, Pádraig, Ian Taylor and Tim Zajontz 2022. ‘China’s Spatial Fix and “Debt Diplomacy” in Africa: Constraining Belt or Road to Economic Transformation?’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 56(1): 57-77, https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2020.1868014.
- Zajontz, Tim 2022. ‘The Chinese infrastructural fix in Africa: Lessons from the Sino-Zambian “road bonanza”’, Oxford Development Studies 50(1): 14-29, https://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2020.1861230.
- Taylor, Ian and Zajontz, Tim 2020. ‘In a fix: Africa’s place in the Belt and Road Initiative and the reproduction of dependency’, South African Journal of International Affairs 27(3): 277-295, https://doi.org/10.1080/10220461.2020.1830165.
- 2023. Co-editor (with Faye Donnelly and Gillian Brunton) for a special issue on the life and work of the late Professor Ian Taylor. Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations.
- Zajontz, Tim and Shangwe, Muhidin 2024. ‘Contemporary geopolitics-cum-geoeconomics in East Africa: New scrambles and omni-alignments’, in Cope, Zak (ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Geopolitics. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Zajontz, Tim and Mandira Bagwandeen 2024. ‚Infrastructure‘, in Engel, Ulf (ed.) Yearbook on the African Union. Vol. 3. Leiden: Brill.
- Zajontz, Tim 2023. ‘Infrastructure’, in Engel, Ulf (ed.) Yearbook on the African Union. Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill.
- Zajontz, Tim 2022. ‘Railway imperialisms in East Africa: Laying the tracks for exploitation’, in Cope, Zak and Ness, Immanuel (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Economic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Zajontz, Tim and Ian Taylor 2021. ‚Capitalism and Africa’s (Infra)Structural Dependency: A Story of Spatial Fixes and Accumulation by Dispossession‘, in Oritsejafor, E.O. and Cooper, A.D. (eds.) Africa and the Global System of Capital Accumulation. Routledge.
Forschungsinteressen
- African international relations, politics and political economy
- Africa-China, Africa-EU relations, Africa-US relations
- The political economy of contemporary geopolitics/geoeconomics, Second Cold War
- Economic governance and state-society relations
- Regionalisms, regional integration, spatial political economy
- Neo-Marxian, neo-Gramscian and decolonial approaches to IR/GPE
- Critical realist philosophy of science
Lehre
- Brownbag-Seminar der Politikwissenschaft
- Seminar: Coloniality, capitalism, contestation: The political economy of the ‚Global South‘
- Seminar: The Second Cold War: Origins, Dynamics, Impacts
- Vorlesung: Einführung in die Internationalen Beziehungen
- Vorlesung: Politikwissenschaftliche Methoden
- International Relations research colloquium
- Lecture: Introduction to International Relations Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- MA course: South-South cooperation then and now: A multi-disciplinary analysis of Africa-China relations Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- Methods course: Doing interview research in politics
- International Relations research colloquium
- Advanced course: ‘Global Africa’ in a Changing World Order Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- Introductory course accompanying the lecture ‘Introduction to Political Science’ Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- Advanced course: South-South cooperation then and now – zooming in on Africa-China relations Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- Introductory course: Global Political Economy Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- MA course: Coloniality, Capital, Contestation: The Political Economy of the ‚Global South‘ Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- MA course: Interdisciplinary Approaches Institute of Political Science, TUD Dresden University of Technology
- MA course: Theories of International OrganisationsInstitute of Political Science, TUD Dresden University of Technology
- MA course: Complex Actor Constellations and Horizontal Cooperation in the Transnational Realm Institute of Political Science, TUD Dresden University of Technology
- Advanced course: The International Relations of ‚Sub-Saharan Africa‘ Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- Introductory course: Foundations of International Relations and Global Politics Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- Advanced course: Global Political Economy and the Global South Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- Introductory course accompanying the lecture ‘Introduction to Political Science’ Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg
- First term 2020/21 Honours (4th year) lecture and tutorial: The International Relations of ‚Sub-Saharan Africa‘ School of International Relations, University of St Andrews
- Second term 2019/20 Honours (4th year) lecture and tutorial: The International Relations of ‚Sub-Saharan Africa‘ School of International Relations, University of St Andrews
- Second term 2016 Senior honours (4th year) module: Global Political Economy Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University
- Second term 2015 Senior honours (4th year) module: Global Political Economy Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University
- Second term 2014 Senior honours (4th year) module: Global Political Economy Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University
Medien
For a list of interviews and media commentary, please follow this link.
Projekte
De/Coloniality Now – Early-career Tandem Research Projects
Starting in October 2023, four young researchers from Freiburg are working with international colleagues to break new ground in tackling issues related to coloniality and decoloniality.
Project 2 – The coloniality of contemporary geopolitics in East Africa: Insights from Dar es Salaam
In this project, Tim Zajontz (University of Freiburg) and Muhidin Shangwe (University of Dar es Salaam) explore the intensifying geopolitical and economic competition that East Africa is currently experiencing. Their research aligns with recent efforts to rekindle the Dar es Salaam School and its decolonial Marxism to study how de/coloniality shapes current geopolitics-cum-geoeconomics in East Africa and beyond.
In this cooperation between a German and an East African university, the tandem partners will scrutinize the involvement of external stakeholders such as China, the European Union and the United States in East Africa. They strive to move away from Eurocentric theoretical models that shape the bulk of classical geopolitics literature and instead explore the potential of the Dar es Salaam school in conceptualizing geopolitical competition in East Africa within a de/colonial framework.
The working languages are English and Kiswahili. The project is part of the De/Coloniality Now research foci “De/Colonial Cultural and material extractivism, resistance and restitution” and “Newly emerging narratives and patterns of coloniality.”
Publications
- Tim Zajontz and Muhidin Shangwe. 2024. “Contemporary Geopolitics-cum-Geoeconomics in East Africa“, in Z. Cope (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Geopolitics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25399-7_15-1.
- Muhidin Shangwe. „Opposing Dubai’s Presence in Dar es Salaam“, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, News, 11/20/2023.
https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/51267/opposing-dubais-presence-in-dar-es-salaam - Interview, Tim Zajontz. Table.Media, Table Africa. 29. January 2024
https://table.media/africa/analyse/mit-global-gateway-versucht-die-eu-sich-in-strategischem-handeln/ - Interview, Tim Zajontz. Table.Media, Table China. 30. January 2024
https://table.media/china/analyse/global-gateway-behaelt-schwerpunkt-auf-investitionen-in-afrika/