GIGA Institut für Asien-Studien

The Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS), based at Universität Hamburg, is guided by the overarching question: "Which climate futures are possible and which are plausible?" This GIGA co-led project in the cluster's second phase aims to enhance the use of near-term climate predictions through the use of narratives, where effective narratives are not only founded in climate dynamics, but - through an iterative process - co-created with societal actors.
DFG, Excellence Strategy, 2026-2032

Italy is one of the few major European countries without a formal Indo-Pacific strategy. This policy-oriented project led by the Torino World Affairs Institute aims at assisting the Italian government in deciding on whether to adopt such a strategy and to identify lessons that can be learned from France and Germany's Indo-Pacific engagements.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Italy, 2026

The Leibniz Research Network "China" consolidates existing China expertise within the Leibniz Association and makes it politically utilisable. In addition, experience-sharing between members supports them in conducting cooperation with Chinese partners while maintaining research security. The GIGA contributes to the network, inter alia, with its expertise on China’s foreign policy.
Leibniz Association, 2025-2028

Party-state governance in China is undergoing significant digital transformation. This transformation is accompanied by an expansion of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) intervention powers and surveillance capabilities domestically, as well as a growing sense of global mission. The interdisciplinary project team analyses the resulting institutional restructuring and emerging operational logics and investigates China’s ambitions to disseminate its digitally enabled governance model abroad.
BMFTR, 2025-2029

Since the Cold War's end, militaries have played varied roles in democratic backsliding - from leading coups to supporting or resisting autocratic moves. This project systematically explores how armed forces shape the erosion, collapse, or defense of democracy worldwide.
DFG, 2025-2028

This project examines the dynamic interactions between religious institutions and practices on the one hand and political outcomes on the other - in other words, how religion both shapes and is shaped by politics. While primarily adopting quantitative approaches, analyzing various survey data and location data of various religious institutions, it also draws insights from qualitative evidence and case studies. The project focuses on Indonesia as the initial case and will add more cases as appropriate.
AvH, 2025-2026

This project investigates the most potent weapon of digital authoritarianism - lawfare in the digital realm - in South and Southeast Asia. Building on previous research, it creates the first database in the world on the range of laws used for digital repression of civil society by autocratic/autocratising states, its impact on democracies and civil liberties, and countermeasures for democratic resistance and resilience.
2025-2027