In January 2006, the German Overseas Institute (DÜI) – established in 1964 – was renamed to GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies (Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Re-gionale Studien). GIGA is the largest German research institute and one of the biggest Euro-pean think-tanks for area studies and comparative area studies.
The research activities of around 50 academic staff members combine systematic and com-parative area studies within the framework of a two-dimensional organisational structure: specialists on different world regions are simultaneously assigned to four area studies re-search institutes (German Institute for Middle East Studies, Institute of African Affairs, Insti-tute of Asian Affairs, Institute for Ibero-American Studies) and three overarching research programmes (“Legitimacy and Efficiency of Political Systems”, “Dynamics of Violence and Security Cooperation”, “Transformation in the Process of Globalisation”). GIGA engages in three central activities: basic and applied research on political, economic and social developments in Asia, the Near and Middle East, Africa and Latin America, (pol-icy) advice to political institutions, the business community and the media and networking within the area studies and comparative area studies community. GIGA’s research projects are multi- and inter-disciplinary, designed to test contemporary theory and provide impetus to area studies and comparative area studies and empirically based on sources specific to the observed regions. The research analyses national and re-gional contexts in order to explain motivations, relevance, and the reproducibility of specific policies.