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GIGA RP 2
Research Programme 2:
Violence and Security
The research programme focuses on selected and especially relevant phenomena related to violence and security which particularly affect Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, but which also have repercussions for Germany and Europe. Following the end of the East-West conflict, intrastate and transnational conflicts, which are characterised by asymmetric conflict structures and exhibit many regional facets, now dominate. Today, state failure, transnationally active terrorist and criminal networks, and tensions between ethnic and religious identity groups as well as the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the scarcity of strategic raw materials are considered the most important global security challenges. The so-called pariah states appear to be important adversaries of Western interests.
Within Research Programme 2, four research teams (RT) focus on four especially relevant sets of problems, all of which can be researched particularly well through comparative area studies: RT 1 deals with “Natural Resources and Security”; RT 2 studies “Religion, Conflict and Politics”; and RT 3 examines “War and Peace Processes”. RT 4 is dedicated to “Pariah States and Sanctions”.
Research Teams:
1) Natural Resources and Security
- Under which conditions does the production of natural resources lead to violence – or serve as a power resource for political stability?
- The focus on the intrastate impacts of resource wealth is complemented by the examination of their external effects: how is security in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East and the foreign policy of Western as well as Southern governments influenced by the external sensitivity of some resources (“security of supply”)?
- The focus on aspects of domestic and foreign policy is complemented with a reflection on key concepts (particularly rents, raw materials, resources) and their operationalisation, something which has to date been neglected in the relevant debates.
2) Religion, Conflict and Politics
- Under which conditions do religious factors lead to violence, and when do they lead to peace?
- In which way are religious identities mobilised in political processes? Does the mobilisation of religion have international links, and if so, to what extent?
- Which problem-solving strategies have been used to date, and have they been successful? To what extent and under which conditions are religious peace initiatives successful?
- Are the relationships of religious, especially Islamic, groups to the West dialogue or conflict oriented?
3) War and Peace Processes
- To what extent does the structure of conflict (game situation) determine how differences are addressed, and to what extent can this process be said to be voluntaristic.
- What are the basic principles, norms, rules and procedures of a peace process in terms of regime theory and how do they affect its efficiency and robustness?
- What meaning does the institutional design of peace treaties and overcoming the past have with a view to the sustainability of the peace process?
4) Pariah States and Sanctions
- What exactly does the external pressure look like – that is, which actor is applying which form of pressure with which intensity?
- Which structural power resources can a regime generally fall back on, and how does it use these in reaction to external pressure in its various forms?
- How can the long-term stability of authoritarian states in the face of external sanctions be explained?
- What relationships exist between the sanctioned and the sanction-imposing states, and to what extent is the target country susceptible to external pressure?
- What effects do sanctions have in the target countries, and which counter-strategies do these target countries pursue nationally and internationally?
Selected Publications:
Basedau, Matthias (2009): Religion und Gewaltkonflikt im subsaharischen Afrika: Zur Rolle religiöser Faktoren in Benin und der Elfenbeinküste, in: Politische Vierteljahreschrift, PVS Sonderheft, November 1, 2009, pp. 150-176
Basedau, Matthias/ Lay, Jann (2009): Resource Curse or Rentier Peace? The Ambiguous Effects of Oil Wealth and Oil Dependence on Violent Conflict, in: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 46, No. 6 (2009), pp. 757-776
Beck, Martin/ Gerschewski, Johannes (2009): On the Fringes of the International
Community. The Making and Survival of "Rogue States", in: Sicherheit und
Frieden/Security and Peace, 27 (2009) 2 (Special Issue on "International
Community - Rhetoric and Reality", edited by Berit Bliesemann de
Guevara/Florian Kühn), pp. 84-90.
Bünte, Marco (2009): Myanmar und die Frage der externen Intervention: Von der "Responsibility to Protect" zum humanitären Dialog, in: Die Friedens-Warte, Journal of Peace and International Cooperation, 1, 84 (2009), Nr. 1, pp. 125-144.
Huhn, Sebastian (2009): A history of nonviolence? The social construction of Costa Rican peaceful identity, in: Social Identities, Volume 15 Issue 6, November 2009, pp. 787-810.
Huhn, Sebastian/ Oettler, Anika/ Peetz, Peter (2009): Contemporary Discourses on Violence in Central American Newspapers, in: International Communication Gazette Vol. 71, No. 4, pp. 243-261 (Abstract).
Wegenast, Tim (2010): Uninformed Voters for Sale: Electoral Competition, Information and Interest Groups in the US, in: Kyklos (i.E.)
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