Research Projects

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 investigates the most potent weapon of digital authoritarianism - lawfare in the digital realm in South and Southeast Asia in general and Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Thailand in particular. 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.
Luminate, 2025-2027

This project will critically examine the societal discourse surrounding ethnic politics in mainland China, focusing on how intellectuals utilized various philosophical, theoretical, and cultural resources while adapting, appropriating, and rearticulating ideas to engage with the subject. It will shed light on the critical-mindedness and agency of contemporary Chinese intellectuals and enhance our understanding of intellectual praxis and knowledge production in a non-Western context.
DFG, 2025-2027

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

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 rapid loss of biodiversity and ongoing climate change are also the result of intensive agriculture. At the same time, they jeopardize agriculture and food security. The Leibniz Lab "Systemic Sustainability" brings together relevant knowledge in science and society on this fundamental challenge in order to promote the development and implementation of systemic solutions.
Leibniz Association, 2024-2027

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

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

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

This project bundles the China expertise of universities and non-university research institutes in the Hamburg metropolitan area. Against the background of current opportunities and challenges in cooperating with China, primary goals of the project include the development of instruments for such cooperation in accordance with legal parameters, the establishment of appropriate exchange formats among the consortium members, and the implementation of relevant training programmes.
BMBF, 2023-2026

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

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

The Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) based in Tunis is the first and only Institute for Advanced Studies in North Africa. MECAM’s ambition is to become an intellectual hub that contributes to the emergence of cutting-edge, internationally relevant and visible research in the humanities and social sciences on, from and in the Maghreb and in particular with scholars from the Maghreb. The GIGA coordinates MECAM's publications as well as outreach and transfer activities.
BMBF, 2023-2029

Governments in autocratic and autocratizing contexts may use anti-fake news laws to discredit critical civil society actors as agents of “disinformation” and punish them. Through comparative and cross-learning insights derived from field studies, we seek to map civil society responses against the autocratic use of disinformation laws and strengthen policies for right to information and freedom of speech and expression.
NED, 2023-2025

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

In an age of proliferating disinformation, governments in South and Southeast Asia have come out with anti-fake news laws. However, the “weaponization" of such laws can lead governments to control online platforms and censor critics. Our project examines the patterns and processes of the weaponization of such laws against civic actors and countermeasures by the latter. We aim for academic and policy outcomes to improve disinformation regulation while safeguarding digital rights.
Luminate, 2023-2024

This project examines the politics of kin-work performed by families of Tunisian ex-combatants, a form of affective labor that sustains care relations for kin who have migrated to regional sites of jihad. In a hostile public sphere where the jihadi denotes a monstrous form of life, any political advocacy for ex-combatants requires first recovering their humanity. Drawing on street protests, TV talk shows, and other cultural forms, I show how kinship claims reinforce citizenship rights under the Global War on Terror.
AvH, 2022-2024

Among Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, highly treatable diseases such as syphilis have become a major health concern, with particularly serious risks for pregnant women and infants. Medical treatment faces the challenges of how to reach out to the migrants in often precarious legal and material situations. The project will explore effective ways to provide adequate prevention and health care measures for the at-risk population in the context of these obstacles.
GIZ, 2022-2023

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