News of the GIGA Doctoral Programme

On the 28th of November, Dastan Jasim submitted her dissertation “Civic Culture Without A State: Kurdish Civic Culture in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria between State-Control and Resistance” at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Congratulations!

On the 15th of December, Jorge Rincon successfully defended his dissertation “Current Issues on Rural Development: Land Tenure, Land Use Change and Climate Change“ at the Universität Gottingen. Congratulations!

Alina Ripplinger presented at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL) Heidelberg in late November and early December. She gave a presentation during her Workshop on “Resistance in Central America: Human Rights Strategies”, an introduction to Central America during an international conference by the project “Communities of practice”, and she presented on legal resistance during the Annual Seminar of the project ICCAL which was convened on "Democracy and Human Rights. Resistance, Resilience and Challenges".

Mona Saleh wrote a GIGA Focus Middle East titled “Converging Interests, Diverging Realities: Arab League–EU Cooperation” in collaboration with Ass. Prof. Dr. James Worrall.

Askan Weidemann gave a talk at a workshop on "Resuming fieldwork in and academic exchanges with China in the post-pandemic era" on November 17 at Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) in Paris, where he talked about his recent 6-month fieldwork experience in China (March-September 2023). Moreover, he gave another talk (BCCN Talk) at the Free University in Berlin entitled "Fieldwork in China and the Digitalization of the Chinese Petitioning System" on November 30.

Hager Ali was a panelist at the GIGA Forum on Coup Contagion on December 6th where she discussed Sudanese post-coup politics, coup contagion, and the stability of military regimes. She also spoke early this month to Deutsche Welle again about recent developments in the Sudan War: Sudan crisis: Mass displacement and death and about Tunisia, Migration and the next elections, also at DW: How will migration affect Tunisia's 2024 election campaign? Finally, she will be chairing Section 6 "Advancing Research on Hybrid Regimes and Authoritarianism: Trends, Innovations and Cases" at the ECPR General Conference 2024 in Dublin, for which applications are open until January 18. The Section builds on her ECPR Joint Session Workshop on Hybrid Regimes and Authoritarianism in March 2024 and the Autocracies with Adjectives Blog Series, which now celebrates 25 contributions.

Diba Mirzaei spent six weeks in the USA for her archival research and returned in mid-November. She visited the Hoover Archive at Stanford University and The Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda.

Johanna Pieper wrote a GIGA Focus Latin America titled “Crisis in the Andes: The Rise (and Fall?) of Two Women Leaders” in collaboration with Dr. Daniela Osorio Michel.

Our Doctoral Researchers recently held their General Assembly and elected new Representatives: Houssein Al Malla, Adhiraaj Anand, and Alina Ripplinger. Congratulations!

As previously discussed, starting next year we will have monthly DP meetings on the last Wednesday of each month. They will take the format required by the doctoral researchers such as Colloquium presentations, Jour Fixe, and Alumni Ask me Anything.