Neueste Publikationen – IDOS

Trade, treaties, and aid: insights into North-South trade in critical raw materials

Stender, Frederik / Tim Vogel — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 09:16:43 +0200

International cooperation and contestation in the Trump Era: how can countries exercise agency in a fragmenting order?

Sumner, Andy — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:55:22 +0200

Countries now act in an international cooperation architecture whose rules are disputed from several directions at once. One of those directions is the hegemon itself, the US. The paper argues that the Trump administration’s disruption matters because it moves the largest actor from affirming to contesting across several arenas at once. That reshuffles the calculus for every country. This paper asks how countries can exercise agency when the international order itself is fragmenting. The paper surveys the bewildering array of concepts on state agency and proposes a schema built on two continua. The first is the medium or type of agency, meaning material/institutional versus ideational/discursive. The second is orientation to the prevailing order in a specific arena (not in general) as affirming versus contesting. Countries are not fixed in one position. Whether the same state contests the rules depends on its interests in a particular arena. Each potential position is available only to a country that can pay the arena’s entry fee. The entry fee is the resources, broadly defined, a position demands before a country can take it up. The paper sets out the strategic positions available in a fragmenting system. It names a further position, norm imperialism, where material instruments are turned against an ideational object. The implications for different types of country are discussed.

Whatever happened to the ‘Good Old Days’ of development cooperation? Trump 2.0, crisis politics and the post-2030 development agenda

Sumner, Andy / Stephan Klingebiel — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 15:12:35 +0200

This chapter seeks to explain why development cooperation norms that looked stable in the mid-2010s became contested after 2016. We link this to crisis politics and the post-2030 agenda. Here, the ‘good old days’ means the mid-2010s cooperation moment. In 2015, four agreements were adopted within months: the 2030 Agenda (SDGs), the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development. Their adoption set shared expectations about collective action. These agreements did not create a single regime, but they shared a narrative of common problems, shared responsibility, and multilateral problem-solving, backed by monitoring, review, and had a basis in evidence. Only a decade later, that consensus has evaporated. Development cooperation faces intersecting pressures operating through budget contractions, institutional precarity, and public narratives fuelled by the populist right in many DAC donor countries. In this new context, many DAC donors are shifting attention towards direct national interests, including security, migration policing, and geo-politics/geo-economic priorities, amid fiscal squeeze, intensified by the Trump 2.0 administration’s anti-multilateralism. Our chapter argues that the mid-2010s moment was highly contingent on an alignment of interests, institutions, and policy narratives, rather than a settled consensus, and that shifting political ‘mood’ has unravelled that spirit dramatically. We use a policy norm dynamics framework that traces norm contestation through actors and networks, institutions, and context and policy narratives, and introduces ‘epochal moods’ as the over-arching political climate that shape the nature and form of development cooperation. We outline the competing normative regimes of development cooperation and what they imply for positioning on a post-SDG/post-2030 collective framework.

Der Weg für arme Länder aus der Schuldenfalle

Berensmann, Kathrin — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:00:39 +0200

Etwa die Hälfte der einkommensschwachen Länder ist derzeit zahlungsunfähig oder hat ein großes Risiko, zahlungsunfähig zu werden. Was die Weltgemeinschaft dagegen tun muss, erläutert eine IDOS-Wissenschaftlerin.

The future Global Development Agenda will have to be shouldered by Middle Powers

Keijzer, Niels / Hyeyoung Woo / Jee Hee — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:31:52 +0200

Niels Keijzer, Hyeyoung Woo & Jee Hee Yoon outline the potential ways middle powers may best organise to shoulder the global development agenda and the (quasi-) multilateral institutions could support them in this regard?

Between shock and opportunity: Hormuz and deepening North Africa–Europe relations

Houdret, Annabelle / Mark Furness — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:21:00 +0200

With the world’s attention fixed on the Strait of Hormuz, developments in North Africa have made fewer headlines in Europe. The crises in the Middle East are likely to deepen the geostrategic interdependence of North Africa and Europe, creating opportunities for both regions.

Doom or adaptation? Research findings on the complex interlinkages between climate change and human mobility and their implications for societal and political discourses

Schraven, Benjamin — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 16:09:00 +0200

In the face of ever-new temperature records and serious natural disasters, the effects of climate change no longer appear to be just abstract visions of
the future. The fears triggered by global warming, particularly in the Global North, are strongly focused on the issues of forced displacement and migration. The fear that climate change could rob millions of people—especially in the Global South—of their homes soon, and that these people could
then set off for Europe or North America as climate refugees, is reflected in countless media reports in recent years. Furthermore, non-governmental
organizations regularly use the alarmist, if not to say doomsday, narrative of a steady increase in the number of climate refugees and the existential
threat posed by climate change to billions of people worldwide to promote their work. The scientific debate on the links between climate change and human mobility has intensified considerably over the last 15 years, and numerous research projects, some of them large-scale, have been launched on the topic of “climate migration.” This chapter wants to reflect on the findings of these research activities, also considering global migration trends. The fundamental implications for the political and (global) social handling of the nexus between climate change and human mobility will be worked out.

Governing the climate-mobility nexus: frameworks, institutions, and perspectives

Schraven, Benjamin — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 16:03:00 +0200

This chapter deals with climate mobility and how it is addressed in international politics. Yet, no internationally binding convention explicitly addresses climate-related mobility. However, there are a couple of existing agreements, frameworks, policy processes and related institutions offering potential scope to address various aspects of the climate-mobility nexus. The policy landscape shaped in this way cuts across different policy and action areas such as climate policy, disaster risk management, human rights or migration/displacement policy. Particularly relevant frameworks and processes – including, for instance, the Global Compact on Migration or the Sendai Framework – and institutions such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are analysed in this chapter. Furthermore, the chapter also highlights focus areas of action in the contemporary policy landscape that has been formed around the topic of climate mobility and briefly explores potential future (coordination) models for this policy landscape.

Umwelt- und klimabedingte Mobilität: eine Analyse des medialen Diskurses

Kampffmeyer, Nele / Melanie Pietschmann / Lydia Gaus / Benjamin Schraven — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 15:47:00 +0200

Das Ziel dieser Studie war es, gängige Narrative und Frames zu umwelt- und klimabedingter menschlicher Mobilität zu analysieren und einzuordnen. Frames und Narrative prägen die Wahrnehmung und Bewertung von Migration, indem sie bestimmten Akteuren spezifische Rollen und Verantwortlichkeiten zuschreiben.

Die Studie konzentriert sich innerhalb des öffentlichen Diskurses auf mediale Narrative. Dazu wurden 95 Artikel deutschsprachiger Leitmedien aus dem Zeitraum von August 2020 bis August 2024 untersucht. Die Auswertung erfolgte mittels qualitativer Inhaltsanalyse unter Verwendung der Kodierungssoftware MaxQDA. Dabei kam ein deduktiv-induktives Kodierungssystem zum Einsatz, um die Ergebnisse systematisch zu erfassen und miteinander zu vergleichen. Die deduktive Kodierung basierte auf einem Diskursanalyseschema, das zentrale Aspekte diagnostischer, prognostischer und motivationaler Framings berücksichtigt.

Im Rahmen der Diskursanalyse konnten drei prägende Narrative identifiziert werden, die die mediale Berichterstattung über umweltbedingte Mobilität maßgeblich beeinflussen: (a) Der dominante humanitär-wissenschaftliche Diskurs: das Leid des Südens und die Verantwortung des Nordens, (b) Der marginale Abwehrdiskurs: „Das Boot ist voll“ und „Klimaflüchtlinge gibt es eigentlich nicht“ und (c) Der aufkommende Diskurs zu Klimaflucht im Globalen Norden: differenziert und individualisiert.

Diese Studie ist Teil des UBA-Forschungsvorhabens „Politik am Nexus Umwelt, Entwicklung und Migration kohärent gestalten“ und trägt zur besseren Einordnung sowie zum tieferen Verständnis des öffentlichen Diskurses über diesen Nexus und seine gesellschaftliche Bedeutung bei.

Was ist klimabedingte Vertreibung? Trends, Ansätze und Herausforderungen

Schraven, Benjamin / Shuva Thapa — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 15:35:00 +0200

Die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf Flucht und Migration sind nicht mehr nur eine abstrakte Zukunftsvision. Die zunehmende Häufigkeit und Intensität von Extremereignissen wie Wirbelstürmen oder Dürren sowie immer neuer Temperaturrekorde auf der ganzen Welt haben einen maßgeblichen Einfluss auf Umsiedlungspläne, Binnenvertreibung und in geringerem Maße auf grenzüberschreitende Vertreibung. Die Ängste, die durch die globale Erwärmung ausgelöst werden, sind – insbesondere im Globalen Norden – auch eng mit den Themen Vertreibung und Migration verbunden. Die Befürchtung, dass der Klimawandel schon bald zig Millionen Menschen, gerade im Globalen Süden, ihrer Heimat berauben und sie dann als Flüchtlinge nach Europa treiben könnte, spiegelt sich in unzähligen Medienberichten der letzten Jahre wider. Immer wieder befeuerten umstrittene Prognosen zum Ausmaß der erwarteten »Klimaflucht« die mediale Aufmerksamkeit […]. Der Beitrag beginnt mit einem globalen Profil der klimabedingten Vertreibung auf der Basis aktueller Daten. Anschließend wird der wissenschaftliche Diskurs über den Zusammenhang zwischen Klima und Vertreibung dargestellt. Im dritten Teil des Beitrags werden die rechtlichen und politischen Rahmenbedingungen analysiert, in denen Vertreibung im Kontext des Klimawandels grundsätzlich berücksichtigt und adressiert wird.

Hitzestress: Wie der Klimawandel unsere Welt bereits heute verändert

Schraven, Benjamin — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 15:22:00 +0200

Bemerkbar macht sich die menschengemachte globale Erwärmung etwa in der Nahrungsmittel- und Wassersicherheit, bei Wirtschaftssystemen, bei Siedlungs- und Infrastrukturen, bei bewaffneten Konflikten, bei der Kultur oder auch bei Flucht und Migration. Ebenso gibt es bedeutende Wechselwirkungen mit der Künstlichen Intelligenz, einem anderen großen Menschheitsthema des 21. Jahrhunderts. Dieses Heft möchte genau diese Themen unter die Lupe nehmen und darlegen, wie die Klimakrise sich auf die genannten Bereiche ausgewirkt hat bzw. welche Wechselbeziehungen es jeweils gibt. Es soll allein um den Kenntnisstand zum Status Quo gehen, nicht um Prognosen oder mögliche Szenarien. In einer Schlussbetrachtung wird versucht, die dargelegten Erkenntnisse einzuordnen.

The fence isn’t the problem: what Ceuta and Melilla really reveal

Houdret, Annabelle — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 14:32:00 +0200

images of people scaling the fence into Ceuta and Melilla fuel the perception of a loss of control. Yet these people cannot simply travel on to the rest of the EU, nor are its external borders the real threat. Rather, the threats lie in the scapegoating and the knee-jerk call for isolation. Both obscure the view of what could be possible: partnership on equal terms to create opportunities for local youth, regulated entry coupled with justified deportation, and honest information.

Domestic revenue instead of development cooperation? Low- and middle-income countries facing the challenge of generating additional revenue

von Haldenwang, Christian — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:37:51 +0200

Exacerbated by the cuts in development cooperation (DC), many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are currently facing severe financial constraints. Against this backdrop, higher domestic revenue is a desirable goal for most countries. Greater attention is being devoted to enhancing domestic revenue in the international development policy discourse too – across the entire political spectrum. For some, the goal is to extend the decision-making scope of government and enhance the development focus of public action, while others hope to relieve the burden of transfers on industrialised nations of the Global North and end the recipient countries’ “addiction” to DC payments. Yet what options are actually available to LMICs to generate more domestic revenue? The present policy brief shows that taxing personal income and landed property in particular could offer opportunities for additional revenue. Another important area is the rationalisation of tax expenditures, which often lead to substantially less revenue without providing any evident benefit. At the same time, however, it is also important to recognise the systemic – and eminently political – nature of tax reforms. Above and beyond the issue of technical and administrative feasibility, the political achievability of reforms must also be taken into
account. Short-term tax increases – for example through higher consumer taxes or tariffs – are often not very sustainable in their own right.
Instead, the aim must be to place the “fiscal contract” between taxpayers and the state on a broader and more stable base where better public services also play a role. One type of revenue (in this case DC) therefore cannot simply be replaced by another (taxes) – a fact that advocates of DC cuts often fail to mention. During the transition, DC must continue to provide contributions, despite declining overall funds.
International players, including the German Government and the EU, can support partner governments in a variety of ways. They are already doing so, for example by promoting the Addis Tax Initiative (ATI). In addition, Germany and the EU should make a determined effort to help strengthen multilateral approaches to cooperation. This particularly applies to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on International Tax Coopera-tion currently being negotiated.

Klima-Recht und Klima-Diplomatie können sich sinnvoll ergänzen

Bauer, Steffen / Reuben Makomere / Kennedy Mbeva — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 12:05:21 +0200

Vor genau einem Jahr stellte der Internationale Gerichtshof in Den Haag in einem Rechtsgutachten fest: Staaten sind völkerrechtlich verpflichtet, das Klima zu schützen und erhebliche Schäden zu verhindern. Der Klimaspruch kann ein Instrument der internationalen Klimadiplomatie sein, diese aber nicht ersetzen.

Migration, internal displacement and social cohesion in northern Mozambique

Gonçalves, Euclides / Rose Jaji — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 09:34:10 +0200

The majority of the people displaced by the armed conflict in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Province live in host communities. Our research shows that many Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) live with family/friends. Less than half live in displacement camps. As in many other internal displacement contexts, the government of Mozambique, development partners and humanitarian organisations use the terms IDPs and host communities to distinguish between the people who fled the conflict and those who welcomed them, respectively. This is a necessary distinction because IDPs are in a particularly precarious situation, having lost homes, family members and means of livelihoods, which renders material and psychosocial support to them indispensable. However, this policy brief identifies two issues that are pertinent to this distinction and the provision of material support to IDPs. First, while the categories of IDPs and host communities may provide clarity for interventions, they do not always reflect the broader history of local communities and how people identify and relate to each other. Second, in contexts where economically vulnerable host communities share their meagre resources with IDPs prior to the arrival of external humanitarian support, humanitarian organisations need to be sensitive to the material circumstances of host communities so that these do not see such support as discriminatory, leading to conflict. When the material support that humanitarian organisations provide to IDPs is beyond the means of their hosts, the latter can become resentful and withdraw their own support from the IDPs. This is a common problem, and the policy brief shows some ways to address it. Governments, development partners, and humanitarian organisations that adopt simplistic distinctions between IDPs and host communities without locating them in the specific socio-economic context risk missing local acts of solidarity and mutual identification as channels of inclusion that are central to maintaining social cohesion.

Key policy messages:

Contextualise displacement. In contexts where displacement occurs within a broader history of regional migration, IDPs are not always seen as outsiders in their host communities because many have prior personal connections to host communities. The government of Mozambique, development partners and humanitarian actors need to embed and understand the current displacement within the long history of migration, ethnolinguistic identification and displacement which shapes relations and contributes to social cohesion.
Integrate local ethos of solidarity. In the absence of external humanitarian support or prior to the arrival of emergency aid, host communities mobilise themselves through an ethos of solidarity, care and hospitality to help displaced people. External interventions coming into such situations need to be sensitive to this ethos and build on existing inclusive social support mechanisms and locally led initiatives so that they do not disrupt positive relations.
Build on locally led integration. Locally led efforts are integral to local ownership of the integration of IDPs and its sustainability. When external support builds on local initiatives, this reduces unintended consequences such as resentment and conflicts between IDPs and host communities.