CLAUDIA HORN

I joined the Department of European & International Studies (EIS) at King’s College in September 2025. Before, I lectured in Environmental and Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Brandeis University, MA, USA. I completed my PhD in International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

My research spans international, environmental, and development studies, grounded in sociology. I examine the relationship between environmental politics, climate finance, and uneven development, particularly how international green strategies affect agrarian conflict and indigenous and traditional populations in the Global South.

This agenda is driven by several questions: What are the mechanisms, actors, and institutions that reproduce and perpetuate the exploration of nature and people in global peripheries, including under the premise of climate action? How can historical and multiscalar analysis of these forces guide effective climate action towards sustainable policies and greater socio-environmental justice?

My book manuscript, based on PhD field research, The Environment for Finance: How International Projects Shape Land and Rights in the Brazilian Amazon, is currently under revision and is expected to be published in 2026. It examines G7 environmental aid to the Brazilian Amazon, as well as the construction of and local contestation surrounding the institutional and technological structures for green economies, especially carbon markets. 

I hold an M.A. in Sociology from the New School for Social Research, New York City, where I worked on transnational public spheres and social movements from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring. I also hold an M.A. from the Technical University Dresden, where I wrote a thesis on neoliberal management reforms in multilateral and bilateral development agencies.  

Between 2018 and 2023, I was based in Belém (in the Amazon state of Pará), Brazil, which will host the Climate Summit (COP30) in 2025. There, I worked at the city government's Secretariat of Planning, and with social movements and unions on issues including land conflicts, agrarian reform, mining, export logistics, energy, extractivism, and trade agreements (EU-Mercosur). Before starting my dissertation at LSE, I worked as a Project Manager United Nations and the Global South at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - New York Office, managing programs at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) amongst others, and in partnership with universities, international civil society activists, and organizations.