GIGA Working Papers

In the spring of 2020, observers and practitioners warned that COVID-19 would increase violence in sub-Saharan Africa through an economic shock that would lead to distributional conflict and state repression – and violence did indeed increase in 2020. An analysis by Prof. Dr. Matthias Basedau and Mora Deitch.

What is the role of Latin American constitutional and supreme courts in social media? We investigate the accounts of 17 high courts on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook for a one-year-period, distinguishing between two dimensions: intensity of use and influence in each social media.

Focusing on North Africa, the Middle East, and the Horn of Africa, this paper offers an analytical framework to better understand forced migration governance across space and time from a more global, pluralist perspective in a logic of iterative theory-building.

Do judges consider themselves political actors having a legislative role? To advance our understanding of the key determinants of judicial behavior, the author uses a survey with federal judges in Mexico to explore to what extent judges adhere to a positivist or a principle‐based constitutionalist legal culture.

This piece is both an exercise in critical conceptual landscaping in the field of Migration Studies and the proposal of an analytical framework that can correct some of its most serious biases. It promises advances for empirical agendas in this area of research.

Sanctions research has so far focused on their implementation and effectiveness, while the termination of such measures has received little attention. This article proposes a process-oriented and relational understanding that takes into account the multi-layered social relations between actors.