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.

This book explores the pivotal role of the military in “dictators’ endgames” — large-scale nonviolent protests in autocracies demanding regime change. It reveals why some militaries repress protests, back the opposition, or stage coups, using a unique dataset and a multi-method analysis of 40 cases from 1946-2014.

With insights from more than 30 global experts on Global Perspectives on Responsible Economic Statecraft we discuss how economic tools can be used to navigate geopolitical tensions, balance diverging interests, and contribute to more stability through forward-looking and proactive strategies. Download the report in this page.

How is the behaviour of Latin American high courts in Twitter shaped by different levels of trust and political attacks experienced by the courts? This article shows that courts with lower levels of trust tend to be more active in social media and to produce more self-promotional or educational content than purely informational one.

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.

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.

This article seeks to identify ways in which the foreign policy power hierarchy inside the Islamic Republic of Iran can be explained. It uses high-level diplomatic meetings as observable evidence in a novel analytical framework to identify the scope of competition and hierarchies in foreign policy decision-making processes. Results reveal that diplomatic activities of key foreign policy decision makers did not noticeably diverge.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.