Research

The research conducted at the GIGA takes place within a matrix structure consisting of four institutes and four research programmes.

GIGA Matrix

Research Profile

The GIGA is the largest German research institute for area and comparative area studies. It is also one of Europe’s biggest think tanks for research on Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, as well as on North-South relations. Through its work, the GIGA examines the key political, economic, and social issues and challenges facing these regions.

In an increasingly tight-knit network of international think tanks, the GIGA plays a key role in further developing comparative area studies. For this reason, it has initiated the ACAS-Net discussion forum for area and comparative area studies:

Discussion Forum
Area Studies & Comparative Area Studies
(ACAS-Net)

ACAS-Net provides a forum for debate and information sharing among academics working in area and comparative area studies.

Regional Powers Network

The Regional Powers Network (RPN), recently established by the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, the University of Hamburg, the University of Oxford, and Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI), Paris, aims to establish a long-term research network in the field of international relations and comparative area studies.

Globalisation has increased the relevance of analyses of the interrelations between (various) processes at different levels of social organisation (that is, at the local, national, sub-regional, regional/continental, and global levels). It is understood as the rapid increase in transnational flows of commodities, services, and communication and is linked to new forms of global and regional division of labour as well as to the enhanced integration of economic areas. Processes of economic and political transformation at the nation-state level, for example, are increasingly subject to complex influences resulting from regional and global changes; in turn, nation-states increasingly impact processes at the regional and global levels.

Thus, two research approaches must be pursued: horizontal comparison (comparative studies) and analysis of vertical interactions (multi-level analysis). In both approaches, actor-based and structure-based analysis are equally relevant.

The research at the GIGA focuses on the analysis of country- and area-specific contexts in order to explain the purpose, relevance, and reproducibility of given policies. It is in this type of analysis that the decisive strengths of area studies and comparative area studies lie.

In general terms, the research questions of the GIGA are as follows:

Why do institutions and actors in given local, national, or regional settings produce different results in terms of economic and political transformation and the provision of security?

To what degree are successful policy patterns transferable to other contexts?

What impact do global processes have on regional, national, and local developments in the regions covered by the GIGA (and vice versa)?

How do transformations in the regions covered by the GIGA impact on OECD countries (in particular Europe and Germany)?

On the one hand, research on these questions aims to generate new, fundamental knowledge – in cooperation with other institutions on a national as well as international level and integrated into the current theoretical debate and state of research in the academic disciplines. On the other hand, policy analysis in crucial fields enables us to contribute to the sound orientation and assessment of policies. As such, the last research question implies an immediate practical relevance for policy makers in the OECD countries. The institute’s research projects are theory-guided and theory-testing, yet they can also be theory-generating.

The GIGA’s empirical work is based on on-site field studies and key sources, many of which are only available in the countries under examination and in the languages of these countries. Area studies, however, is not an end in itself but rather a precondition for extending knowledge about regions that cannot be sufficiently explained using only a single model based on Western experience.

At present, the GIGA’s work is concentrated in four research programmes: