News

Projects | Conferences/Events/Lectures | New Publications | Personnel matters | Other updates

Projects

• Renewal project
  The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved the renewal project "The local arena of power-sharing. Patterns of Adaptation or Continued Disorder" (project leaders PD Dr. Andreas Mehler, GIGA, and Denis Tull, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) up to € 225.000. The project will run from January 2012 to December 2014. Franzisca Zanker and Claudia Simons remain the project's research staff. The renewal project focuses on local level implications of institutional reform (decentralization and police reform) in the context of power-sharing arrangements.

• Institutions for Sustainable Peace
  The Leibniz Gemeinschaft will fund an network on "Institutions for Sustainable Peace - Comparing Institutional Configurations for Divided Societies" with internationally renowned partners. The three year project starts 5/2012 and is coordinated by Dr. Matthias Basedau, Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach and PD Dr. Andreas Mehler.

• Fritz Thyssen Foundation funds research project on the effectiveness of international sanctions
  The Fritz Thyssen Foundation has decided to fund a research project entitled “Ineffective Sanctions?: External Sanctions and the Persistence of Autocratic Regimes”. The project will be under the guidance of the GIGA’s Research Programme 2 “Violence and Security”, part of the larger Research Team 4 “Pariah States and Sanctions”. It will be led by Dr. Christian von Soest (the main author of the grant application) and Assistant Professor Clara Portela. The head applicant is Dr. Matthias Basedau. The project will analyse the factors within and outside sanctioned states (such as Iran, Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea and Zimbabwe) that lead to the success or failure of those sanctions. The project will run for two years and will be supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation to the tune of €120,000. The project will start on 1 December 2011. For further enquiries, please contact Dr. Christian von Soest.

Conferences/Events/Lectures

• "GIGA Forum" Lecture Series

• Conference: South-South relations and Globalization: Chinese migrants in Africa and African migrants in China, 20-24 January 2013 in Dakar (Senegal). Organized by Dr. Laurence Marfaing (IAA) and Dr. Karsten Giese (IAS). Funded by DFG.
  

• The GIGA Institute of African Affairs, together with renowned partners, periodically organises dialogue forums in Berlin which address topical Africa-related issues:

  Participation in the "Afrika-Gesprächskreis im Auswärtigen Amt" is limited to the staff of the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, other ministries, and selected research institutions.
  Contact: Dr. Andreas Mehler ()
  
  
  The Berlin Africa Forum is a joint discussion series of the German-African Business Association, the GIGA and the KfW Development Bank. Current issues related to economic development in Africa are discussed biannually by a selected group of Africa experts from politics, economics, academics and civil society.
  Contact: Dr. Christian von Soest ()

Archive

New Publications

• GIGA Focus Afrika: (German-language version only)
  Nr. 01, 2013: Erneut gewaltsamer Regimewechsel in der Zentralafrikanischen Republik (Andreas Mehler)
  Nr. 12, 2012: Südafrika: Der ANC hat keine Lösung für die soziale Misere (Christian von Soest)

• GIGA Focus Global: (German-language version only)
  Nr. 2, 2013: Afrika im Sog der Eurokrise (Hans-Heinrich Bass und Hans-Hermann Steinbeck)

• GIGA Focus International:
  Nr. 2, 2011: Peace through Constitutional Amendment? Opportunities and Tendencies (Andreas Mehler)

• GIGA Working Paper:
  Large-Scale Agricultural Investments under Poor Land Governance Systems: Actors and Institutions in the Case of Zambia (Kerstin Nolte)

• GIGA Journal Family:
  Afrika Spectrum: Vol 48, No 1 (2013)
  Africa Yearbook co-published by the Africa Institute of South Africa

• Mehler, Andreas (2013): Power-Sharing, in: Nicolas Cheeseman, David Anderson and Andrea Scheibler (eds.), Routledge Handbook of African Politics, Abingdon: Routledge (Flyer)

• Lay, Jann, Michael Grimm, Flore Gubert, Ousman Koriko and Christophe J Nordman(2013): Kinship ties and entrepreneurship in Western Africa, in: Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, DOI:10.1080/08276331.2013 (Abstract)

• Mehler, Andreas (2013): Review Mike McGovern 'Making War in Côte d'Ivoire', in: The Journal of Modern African Studies, 51, 1, 189-191, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X13000165

• Zanker, Franzisca (2013): Legitimate representation in mediation processes: Civil society involvement in Liberia and Kenya, in: Mediation Arguments, 1, 1-20 (Full text)

More

Personnel matters

• GIGA and Leuphana University Lüneburg Jointly Appoint Junior Professor
  Dr. Sebastian Elischer was appointed junior professor for comparative political science at Leuphana University Lüneburg on 1 October 2012. The successful joint hiring process was the result of the close collaboration between the GIGA and the Centre for Democracy Research (ZDEMO) at the university's Institute of Political Science. Jun.-Prof. Dr. Elischer will be employed at both institutions.

Other updates

• The Africa Yearbook wins the 2012 Conover-Porter Award
  The Africa Yearbook, which has been published since 2004, has received this year's prestigious Conover-Porter Award. Established in 1980 in honour of two pioneers in African Studies bibliography, Helen Conover and Dorothy Porter Wesley, this biennial award is presented by the African Studies Association (ASA) and the Africana Librarians Council (USA) for 'outstanding Africa-related reference works, bibliographies or bibliographic essays published in any country, separately or as part of a larger work'. The award ceremony was held on 29 November 2012 during the 55th annual ASAconference in Philadelphia. The African Studies Centre in Leiden , the Dag Hammerskjöld Foundation in Uppsala and the GIGA Institute of African Affairs at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg compile this annual volume that is published by Brill Publishers in Leiden: http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/africa-yearbook-online.