Publications

Peace and conflict are not the same across territories and scales. Conceptualizing peace as a process based on three core functions of society and related norms allows us to identify variations in peacebuilding needs and perceptions. The entanglement of different scales shapes the diversity of peace and highlights the opportunities and challenges of peacebuilding and related norms, along with their diffusion and contestation.

Local actors should be involved in peacebuilding processes and security sector reforms (SSR). The book presents a feminist and intersectoral conceptualisation of SSR as well as quantitative and qualitative findings from 42 post-conflict societies as well as from Afghanistan and Colombia. Open Access until 11 December 2023!

„Sanktionen“ stellt fundiert, verständlich und anschaulich die Möglichkeiten und Fallstricke dieses zentralen Machtinstruments der internationalen Politik im 21. Jahrhundert vor und gibt einen Blick in die Zukunft: Wie werden Sanktionen künftig eingesetzt? Das Buch stellt Maßstäbe vor, die Europa und Deutschland bei der Verhängung ihrer Strafmaßnahmen in Zukunft leiten sollten.

Der Westen ist nicht mehr der Nabel der Welt. Stattdessen treten die Staaten des Globalen Südens mit neuem Selbstbewusstsein auf. Das Buch diskutiert, warum die Staaten des Globalen Südens so handeln, wie sie es tun, warum deren Skepsis gegenüber dem Westen so tief sitzt – und warum in der neuen Vielfalt auch Chancen liegen.

Communism only lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of history was not far off either. Are we running out of ideas for the future? No. But in order to create positive images of future coexistence, we must learn to look ahead more courageously. Risks and side effects included. The essay has been awarded the 2024 Sylke Tempel Essay Prize.

Die Ethikleitlinien des Netzwerks Fluchtforschung stellen die Achtung der Menschenwürde und die Wahrung der Rechte und des Wohls aller Forschungsteilnehmer*innen, insbesondere, aber nicht ausschließlich derjenigen mit gelebter Fluchterfahrung, in den Mittelpunkt aller Forschungsprozesse.

The Ethics Guidelines of the German Network for Forced Migration Studies place the respect for human dignity and safeguarding the rights and well-being of all research participants, especially but not exclusively those with lived experience of displacement, at the heart of all research processes.

The project „Religion for Peace: Identifying Conditions and Mechanisms of Interfaith Peace“ explored ways to build and maintain peace between different religious groups. This illustrated summary presents key findings and highlights what we learned about interreligious peace, challenges involved, and ideas about what can be done to put interreligious peace together.

How effective are skills training programs in sub-Saharan Africa at improving participants’ skills, employment perspectives and income? This systematic review analyses recent, randomized studies conducted between 2019 and 2024, painting a slightly more optimistic picture than earlier studies.

How does skills training impact the livelihood and employment situation of participants, and how accurate are implementers’ beliefs about program effectiveness? This study of a “best-case” training program in fashion for young women in Ghana finds gaps between realised and expected impacts.

This paper focuses on India’s multifaceted approach to its “China challenge” with and outside the climate regime. It examines whether this rivalry might lead to a breakdown of cooperation and an increased potential for conflict and weaponisation of seemingly disconnected issue-areas.

Shortages in Tunisia have not resulted in the overt politics of bread riots. Nevertheless, citizens made ethical claims regarding the just distribution of goods. While this does not preclude overt political unrest in the future, it suggests that the bread riot thesis, with its prioritising of claim-making against the state, has overlooked the market as an arena of social intervention.

It depends on the personalization of foreign policy and its use for mobilizing domestic support, argue Sandra Destradi and Johannes Plagemann, in their article that explores the case-studies of Bolivia (under Evo Morales), India (under Narendra Modi) and the Philippines (under Rodrigo Duterte).

While the study of interreligious conflict is a growing field of research, interreligious peace lacks conceptualisation and empirical investigation. This article proposes a concept of interreligious peace that distinguishes between positive and negative elements as well as attitudinal and behavioural aspects.

The Islamic faith as a key factor influencing the integration of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe has been the subject of numerous studies by now. This Working Paper examines instead research findings in a non-European context, namely that of the multi-religious societies of Guyana and Suriname.

What are the repercussions of the Gaza war in the Middle East? The article argues that the war has taken the region “forward to the past,” e.g. by revitalizing “Palestine” as a central issue and by increasing the regimes-people divide. At the same time, “Palestine” today has broader global resonance than previous Arab and Islamic framings.

This article examines Saudi Arabia’s complex positioning in the Russia-Ukraine war, considering its adherence to the norm of equal sovereignty alongside its foreign-policy determinants. While the kingdom outwardly supported Ukraine’s right to sovereignty following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, its continued cooperation with Russia, notably through OPEC+, paints a different picture.

This article translates Michael Mann’s notion of infrastructural power into the foreign policy realm and develops a conceptual framework that allows for the systematic treatment of states’ strategic efforts at mobilising domestic non-state actors.

Governments and tech companies worldwide periodically clash over what content is acceptable to post online and who gets to decide. As states exert legal, economic, and political pressure on social media platforms and users to control online conversations, the platforms frequently seek to push back.

Any discourse regarding the use by government officials, governance, or regulation of the internet in general, and social media in particular, must take ideology into account. Policymakers and stakeholders should question in which ways it is compatible with core democratic principles, especially free speech and minority rights.

This meticulously researched book offers a comprehensive analysis of strategic cooperation in authoritarian regimes, specifically focusing on Yemen’s Joint Meeting Parties—an alliance composed of diverse Islamist, Socialist, and Arab nationalist parties.

Social actors’ representative organisations and their effective participation in decision-making should be fostered through more collaborative governance institutions. Building mutual trust between different CSOs would also help here. This would prevent favouritism and provide more beneficial input to the state, both serving to promote more inclusive and sustainable growth for Tunisia.

The Open Access journals of the GIGA Journal Family were able to further increase their reach and influence in 2023. Sage has announced the new impact factors.

The Iraq War of 2003 has been described as a conflict over the meaning of Europe between a transatlantic and a more independent, “Carolingian” vision of the continent. As such, it highlighted the continued importance of a US-led NATO for defining such meaning.

Sometimes, people belonging to different religions do not get along well. In 2022 we travelled to Sierra Leone and Togo where interreligious relations were very peaceful. This comic depicts some examples of how to make interreligious peace: celebrating together, collaborating, being friends, and respecting each other despite differences.

Peace and conflict are not the same across territories and scales. Conceptualizing peace as a process based on three core functions of society and related norms allows us to identify variations in peacebuilding needs and perceptions. The entanglement of different scales shapes the diversity of peace and highlights the opportunities and challenges of peacebuilding and related norms, along with their diffusion and contestation.

Local actors should be involved in peacebuilding processes and security sector reforms (SSR). The book presents a feminist and intersectoral conceptualisation of SSR as well as quantitative and qualitative findings from 42 post-conflict societies as well as from Afghanistan and Colombia. Open Access until 11 December 2023!

„Sanktionen“ stellt fundiert, verständlich und anschaulich die Möglichkeiten und Fallstricke dieses zentralen Machtinstruments der internationalen Politik im 21. Jahrhundert vor und gibt einen Blick in die Zukunft: Wie werden Sanktionen künftig eingesetzt? Das Buch stellt Maßstäbe vor, die Europa und Deutschland bei der Verhängung ihrer Strafmaßnahmen in Zukunft leiten sollten.

Der Westen ist nicht mehr der Nabel der Welt. Stattdessen treten die Staaten des Globalen Südens mit neuem Selbstbewusstsein auf. Das Buch diskutiert, warum die Staaten des Globalen Südens so handeln, wie sie es tun, warum deren Skepsis gegenüber dem Westen so tief sitzt – und warum in der neuen Vielfalt auch Chancen liegen.