GIGA Institute for African Affairs

Religious leaders are active for (interreligious) peace in many contexts and, for example, use their rhetoric to advocate for peace. The effectiveness of religious leaders’ rhetoric depends on the interplay of religious leaders being the messengers and the contents of their words—the message itself. This project (re)tests the (comparative) effectiveness of religious leaders as peace messengers and effective content of peace messages. The project also examines effects of an intervention.
DFG, 2024-2026

The production of raw materials and agricultural goods is often associated with unsustainable labor and environmental conditions - particularly in countries of the Global South. In response, several European countries have introduced binding corporate due diligence regulations since the mid-2010s. Given their complexity and global scope, value chains pose a particular challenge for effective sustainability governance. This project investigates the largely unexplored impacts of these regulations - especially on conditions in the countries of production.
Volkswagen Foundation, 2024-2028

GIGA‘s Digital Transformation Lab (DigiTraL), funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, analyses the political drivers and real-world consequences of the digital transformation taking place around the world. The Global South in particular is an important actor in and shaper of this transformation.
FFO, 2024-2025

In recent years, the world has experienced an unprecedented number of mass protest events. Yet despite valuable research endeavours, one area that has not been systematically addressed is the conditions under which such protests turn violent. This is a significant limitation, as violent protests have serious detrimental effects: They harm people as well as infrastructure, erode trust between citizens and government, and polarize societies. To address this shortcoming, the Dynamics of Mass Protest (DMP) project will systematically study the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of protests.
DFG, 2024-2026

Individual sanctions have become a go-to instrument with which Western powers confront challenges to international peace and security. Shaping the trend of individualizing accountability, the USA and the EU as the main bilateral global sanction senders target individuals and entities to hold them accountable for the instigation of armed conflict, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or the violation of human rights. INSA seeks to systematically analyze and compare the listing decisions of the USA and the EU.
Deutsche Stiftung Friedensforschung (DSF), 2023-2026

This research project examines how African agency can be empirically measured using the relationship between African states and the International Criminal Court as a case study. The project seeks to contribute to the relatively small literature focused on advancing academic understanding of Africa's agency in International Relations.
OMT, 2023-2024

The goal of this project is to assess the short- and mid-term economic consequences of EU and US sanctions imposed on Russia on companies from sanctions sender countries. Knowing how and why economic sanctions affect firms’ behavior is key to understanding the impact that sanctions will have - both for good and for ill – for senders’ countries’ economies and sanctions’ effectiveness.