Peace and Security

Peace and Security

The Peace and Security Research Programme uses state-of-the-art methods to study the causes of violent conflict and the conditions that foster sustainable peace. In addition, it investigates sanctions and interventions as key tools in international security policy amid rising geopolitical tensions.


  • International crises, protracted armed conflicts, and social violence are destroying the lives of millions of people across the world. The Peace and Security Research Programme analyses the role of local, national, regional, and international actors in creating peace and security by advancing novel theoretical explanations as well as using state-of-the-art qualitative and quantitative methods. The focus is on the perspectives of citizens, civil society, and governments across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, generating in-depth insights into the roots and processes of violent conflict, and the effectiveness of peacebuilding processes and international interventions. With this approach, the Research Programme contributes both to academic debates as well as to societal and political discourses.

    The Research Programme explores the key factors that influence peace and conflict and how various actors understand peace. It examines how religious and social identities can either escalate violence or promote sustainable peace, and how processes such as forced migration and climate shocks impact these dynamics. Furthermore, members of the Programme study the role of external actors as well as international and regional organisations in peace and conflict, with a particular focus on the imposition, effectiveness, and termination of sanctions amid rising geopolitical tensions.

    PEACEPtions: Diverse Understandings of Peace

    PEACEPtions: Diverse Understandings of Peace

    Visualizations from the PEACEptions project illustrate how people in Cameroon, Colombia, the Philippines, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Venezuela understand peace, ranging from tranquility to socio-political transformation, offering ground for reflection on peacebuilding.

    Infographic | 09/2025

    Demographic (Dis)Continuities in Peace Concepts Within and Across Six Countries

    Explore how answers differ within and across countries. Heatmaps display the distribution of top ranked concepts by region, sex, age, and socioeconomic status. The tool supports side by side comparison, helping identify consistent divides and bridges across groups.

    Infographic | 09/2025

    For You, Peace Is…? Open Responses from Six Countries

    Explore how people across Cameroon, Colombia, the Philippines, South Sudan, Tunisia, and Venezuela describe peace in their own words. The interactive cloud shows terms by frequency and reveals full quotations on hover, making local meanings and shared themes visible at a glance.

    Research Project | 01/10/2024 - 30/09/2027

    World Order Narratives of the Global South, Phase II

    In its second funding phase, the WONAGO project continues to investigate powerful world order narratives in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It particularly aims to understand those perceptions in these regions that - as currently in the Ukraine war - differ significantly from prevailing ideas in the U.S., the EU, and their allies.
    BMBF, 2024-2027

    Research Project | 01/08/2024 - 31/07/2026

    Religion for Peace: Investigating Messengers and Messages for Interreligious Peace

    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

    Research Project | 01/02/2024 - 31/12/2025

    Digital Transformation Lab (DigiTraL), Phase II: Digitalisation as Chance for Cooperation with Global Partners

    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

    Research Project | 01/01/2024 - 31/12/2025

    Climate Obstruction and Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective

    The fight against climate change continues to be hindered by campaigns of corporate and other actors who seek to prevent global and/or national action on climate change. This research group is set up to a joint and comparative research agenda on climate obstruction in and across key Global South countries. The lead institutions are the GIGA and the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).
    DAAD/CAPES, 2024-2026

    Research Project | 01/01/2024 - 31/12/2026

    The Dynamics of Mass Protests: The Influence of Composition, Demands, and Tactics on Violent Outcomes

    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

    Dr. Belén González

    Prof. Dr. Nils B. Weidmann

    Research Project | 01/06/2023 - 30/06/2026

    Targeting: How the USA and EU Use Individual Sanctions

    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

    Research Project | 01/04/2023 - 31/03/2027

    Context Matters – Country-Specific Politico-Economic Analyses, Conflict and Crisis Potentials, as well as Global and Regional Trends / Phase III

    The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the strategic capability of German development cooperation in the context of the BMZ 2030 reform concept are based on in-depth knowledge of country-specific, regional and global developments. The GIGA provides annual information on actors and governance structures as well as on conflict potentials in countries of the Global South. Additionally, important regional and global trends are analysed with a comparative area perspective.
    BMZ, 2023-2027

    Research Project | 01/09/2022 - 31/08/2023

    Legal Identity Under Insurgencies and Unrecognised States

    Legal identity is a target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)s and it underpins the SDGs at large. Not having a recognized legal identity can severely implicate people’s human rights and it may cause statelessness. Our project goes to the core of unresolved tensions around theorising sovereign statehood and the authority to make law.
    Swedish Research Council, 2022-2023

    Dr. Bart Klem

    University of Melbourne

    Team


    Associated


    Working Groups



    Working Group 2: Interventions and Security

    The Working Group analyses the role of external actors, including international and regional organisations, in managing peace and conflict. It focuses on the imposition, effectiveness, and termination of sanctions amid rising geopolitical tensions, exploring the security implications of interventions across local, national, regional, and global contexts.

    President (ad interim)

    Prof. Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach is President (ad interim) of the GIGA.

    Prof. Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach

    Regional Institutes

    Africa|Asia|Latin America|Middle East

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