As security-related issues, the fading role of the state and the gradual elimination of borders are central themes in both political and scholarly debates today. "Failing states" as a safe haven for terrorists, transnational organized crime, a loss of overall legitimacy, shrinking state authority in conflict-ridden regions are the relevant keywords in this context.
There is good reason for a more fine-grained perspective, however. Current security issues are multi-faceted and dynamic, ranging from military protection to efficient public infrastructure and a viable social negotiation process. As a matter of fact, the state is not irrevocably losing ground in security-sensitive areas. In some areas of national and personal security, state authority and sound governmental practice are more important than ever.

The "Security, Society and the State" research programme reflects these contradictory trends. It targets new security-related issues that are prime examples of the post-Cold-War era but have been largely neglected in mainstream research. The programme is intended to encourage junior scholars to pursue unconventional research agendas that are nonetheless crucial, while providing senior scholars with the opportunity to focus intensively on work in progress for a limited period. Moreover, the objective is to combine basic theoretical research with concepts that are applicable to present-day political issues of security policy.

The Foundation's Board of Trustees decides on the applications on the basis of recommendation by an International Advisory Committee.

1. Challenges of new technologies

Traditionally security is regarded as a technical problem with primarily technological solutions: advanced weaponry, complex surveillance systems, and huge data bases seek to identify and neutralise threats in order to prevent them from becoming a reality. However, security technologies often have ambiguous consequences. Thus, new approaches see actors under threat as essentially involved both in the creation of their own insecurity and in its reduction or elimination.
Research proposals are invited on the relation between the security of societies and the technological measures that are implemented in order to assure it. Possible research topics will explore the links between the security of societies and states, and the technological innovations that impact both the threats they confront and their means to dealing with them: cyber-security, surveillance, biometric identification, information exchange, critical infrastructure protection, CBRN and bio-security, and crisis management, among others.

2. Public Policy and Human Security

The physical security of humans and objects is fostered by the public administration of order and the government provision of services. The loss of the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of force in relation to the military and the police does not automatically translate into a collapse of public order, as is illustrated by the provision of administrative and social services by armed groups in civil war societies. However, security gaps also occur in stable democracies with powerful governmental and administrative apparatuses due to political or economic counterincentives to effective control, a lack of inter-agency cooperation, or ignorance as regards warning signals. The "Public Policy and Human Security" research field is designed to promote research devoted to the performance or failure of public administration outside the military and law enforcement services in relation to the state's security-sensitive functions.

3. Patterns of Conflict Resolution between the State and Traditional Actors

Traditional civil society structures in crisis-ridden and post-conflict regions may exert either a facilitating or a restrictive influence on processes of conflict resolution and sustainable peace building. Whether the co-existence of democracy, autocracy and various types of traditional institutions such as chief systems or consensual systems foster or threaten peaceful civil life is a moot point. It makes a substantial difference as regards the re-stabilization of conflict-ridden regions whether the relationship between indigenous traditional and modern Western political institutions is regarded as tense, mutually paralyzing or possibly complementary. The "Conflict Resolution between the State and Traditional Actors" research field is designed to sponsor research that focuses on the interdependency of the two domains with the aim to develop realistic concepts of security policy.

4. Non-Governmental Actors as Partners and Contenders of the State

Governmental and non-governmental actors (including media) find themselves in an ambiguous relationship, often fraught with tension, when it comes to securing key functions of the state and its administrative infrastructure. On the one hand, as agenda setters non-governmental actors have become serious competitors of nation states and their governments even at the international level. On the other, they also may act as vital sponsors of security provision in areas such as human rights protection, migration policy or the containment of intra-state violence and post-civil-war reconstruction in lieu of a governmental agency unable or unwilling to assume responsibility. By contrast to governmental actors, however, non-governmental actors are exposed to incentives to 'stay in business' as experienced conflict managers. The "Non-Governmental Actors as Partners and Contenders of the State" research field is designed to promote research focusing on the interaction of the productive and the precarious side of security-sensitive activities of non-governmental actors.

5. Security and Communication Strategies between Doctrine Formation and Implementation

The gap between strategic principles and their implementation is a notorious problem in security policy. While current scholarly and political debates focus extensively on the interpenetration of international and domestic security issues as well as the insufficient implementation of related policies within the framework of multi-lateral arrangements and national security doctrines, the degree to which such doctrine formation is appropriate tends to get neglected. What characterizes the interlinkages of "internal" and "external" security and how they vary internationally is as much a moot question as is how processes of doctrine formation actually evolve and how mutual learning among various schools of thought is organized. The "Security and Communciation Strategies between Doctrine Formation and Implementation" research field is designed to promote research targeting the ambiguous nature of the linkages of international and domestic security and the resulting doctrine formation in and its interaction with the practice of security policy.

Publishing aid is currently only awarded to especially successful projects already being supported by the Foundation. Please include the following documents:

• two-page summary of the academic merit and innovativeness of the monograph/collection
• cost calculation by the publishing house
• manuscript on which the calculations have been made (digital)

A copy of the (preliminary) PhD certificate should be included in proposals submitted for the publication of PhD theses supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

Applications can be submitted at any time.

2021

Dr. Lotje de Vries, Wageningen (the Netherlands)
Everyday Statehood at the Geopolitical Margin: Social stability despite chronic political crises?

Prof. Dr. Haakon Andreas Ikonomou, Kopenhagen (Denmark)
European Security in a Changing World: General disarmament between international organization & state sovereignty, 1890s-1930s

Prof. Dr. Akos Kopper, Budapest  (Hungary)
State Powers and Critizens’ Challenging Authority in Times of Emergency - Security at Times of the Exception

Dr. Reinoud Leenders, London (United Kingdom)
The ‘shadow of hierarchy’: how states manage non-state armed groups. A comparative study of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan

Dr. Vera Michlin-Shapir, Oxford (United Kingdom)
Russia’s Uses of Ontological Insecurity in Social Media Campaigns in 2016-2020

Prof. Dr. Judith Miggelbrink, Dresden (Germany)
Protein Matters: Securitizing Zoonoses in the EU and the US

Dr. Sabah Mofidi, Amsterdam (the Netherlands)
Studying Changes in Political Identity of Kurdish Immigrants in Western Europe (with a focus on Iranian Kurdish Immigrants in France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands)

Dr. Eitan Oren, London (United Kingdom)
Governing The Futures? A Comparative Analysis of British, Japanese, and Singaporean Futures Strategic Assessments, 1997-2021.

Dr. Daniel Rickenbacher, Basel (Switzerland)
The Swiss Authorities and Political Islam – Between Securitization and Diplomaticization

Dr. Romborah Simiyu, Nairobi (Kenia)   
The role of traditonal institutions in peacebuilding: The case of the Laibon in Mt. Elgon region, Western Kenya

Prof. Dr. Sinisa Vukovic, Washington (USA)     
Approximating the Optimal Negotiating Behavior of Terrorist Groups

 

2020

Dr. Irene Costantini, Napoli (Italy)

Traditional civil society, non-governmental, state and international actors in the reconstruction of Mosul: assessing coexistence, complementarity and competition

Dr. Alessio Iocchi / Dr. Edoardo Baldaro, Napoly/Pisa (Italy)
When Chiefs Fall Apart: Traditional Leaders, Conflict-Solving and the State in Mali and Chad

Dr. Ana Nichita Ivasiuc, Marburg (Germany)
The Rise of Informal Policing in Europe: Security, Space, State

Dr. Pavel Kostogryzov, Ekaterinburg (Russia)
Local communities as agents of governance and security in Andean countries: supporting or contesting the sovereignty of the State?

Dr. Elena Krsmanovic, Utrecht (Netherlands)
Journalism as a Security Threat – Practice and Implications of Journalism Securitisation in Western Balkan Countries (SRB, MNE, CRO)

Prof. Dr. Markus-Michael Müller / Markus Hochmüller, Roskilde (Denmark) / Oxford (United Kingdom)
Colombian Lessons? Assessing the Practical and Normative Consequences of Latin American South-South Security Cooperation

Dr. Rune Saugmann, Tampere (Finland)
Digital visual security: the role of networked digital images in contemporary security

Dr. Barbara Sutton, Albany, NY (USA)
Fashion of Fear: Bodies, Inequality, and Security

Dr. Ori Swed, Lubbock (USA)     
Getting Terrorism Off the Ground: Determinants and Differentials of Drone Adoption by Violent Nonstate Actors

Dr. Johannes Thumfart, Brüssel (Belgium)     
Five Fundamental Challenges to State Sovereignty in the Digital Age: A Descriptive and Normative Analysis

 

2019

Prof. Dr. Tobias Berger / Dr. Karoline Eickhoff (Berlin, Germany)
Security Doctrines in a Changing World: Comparing Western and Asian Policy Strategies towards Africa

Prof. Dr. Margaret Anne Brown / Dr. Volker Heinrich Boege / Dr. Charles Hunt (Melbourne, Australia)
Mali and Bougainville: new perspectives on international engagement in complex, heterogeneous security environments

Dr. Giulia Cimini (Neapel, Italy)
Security for whom? Reshaping notions of state legitimacy for a new social contract: the role of political parties in post-2011 Tunisia and Morocco

Dr. Eugenio Cusumano (Leiden, Netherlands)
Maritime Rescue. International Norm Contestation and Seaborne Migrations across the Mediterranean

Dr. Jaideep Gupte (Brighton, Great Britain)
Governing the ungovernable: understanding the space-violence relationship through an interrogation of municipal functioning

Dr. Machiko Kanetake (Utrecht, Netherlands)
Export Control of Human Rights Sensitive Surveillance Technologies: Conceptual and Policy Implications

Dr. Hye-Sung Kim (Rock Hill, USA)
Identifying Causal Mechanisms of Ethnic Conflict among Pastoral Communities in Northern Kenya

Dr. Jimam Timchang Lar (Jos, Nigeria)
Security, Plurality and Mobility: The State, Borderlands and Ground-Level Dynamics on the Nigerian-Nigerien and the Nigerian-Cameroonian Frontiers

Dr. Bernhard Reinsberg (Glasgow, Great Britain)
The human security implications of market-liberalizing policy reforms by the International Monetary Fund

Dr. Younes Saramifar (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
(In)Security, Ecological Crisis and Use of Religious discourses (SECUR): Environmental citizenship, securitization of nature and nonstate actors in Iran and Afghanistan

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wagner / Dr. Falk Ostermann (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Politicization of Security Policy in Comparative Perspective

Dr. James Worrall (Leeds, Great Britain)
Dancing with Devils: How do Militaries Integrate Understandings of Militias and Rebel Groups into Counterinsurgency (COIN) Doctrine?

 

2018

Dr. Berenice Boutin (Den Haag, Netherlands)
Conceptual and Policy Implications of Increasingly Autonomous Military Technologies for State Responsibility under International Law

Prof. Dr. Rachel Bowen (Columbus, USA)
The Effects of Legal and Social Supports for Women Victims of Crime in Central

Dr. Sandra Brunnegger (Cambridge, Great Britain)
Peace-building: Demobilizing Conflict among Colombia’s Indigenous

Dr. Sajjad Faraji Dizaji (Teheran, Iran)
Economic Sanctions and Conflict Resolution

Dr. Philippe Mamadou Frowd (Ottawa, Canada)
Security pluralism and the constitution of political authority in West Africa

Prof. Dr. Lars Gerhold (Berlin, Germany)
The Social Construction of Security Technologies. From multiple meanings to a binary code: An ethnographic case study in the construction of security within scientific research labs

Prof. Dr. Brandon Kinne (Davis, USA)
Managing Nontraditional Security Threats through Bilateral Cooperation

Dr. Timothy Legrand (Adelaide, Australia)
Tackling Transnational Threats: the Architecture of Anglosphere Security Network Collaboration

Dr. Ana Isabel Lopez Garcia (Hamburg, Germany)
Migrants’ Electoral Responses to Drug-Related Violence in Mexico

Dr. Rory Miller (Doha, Qatar)
Informal Security Alliances in the Arab and Muslim World: Managing Conflict in a Multilateral Context

Dr. Tilman Musch (Bayreuth, Germany)
The Tubu Teda's customary law, its contribution to stability in the Niger-Chad-Libya borderlands and legal heterarchy. A citizen-science approach

Dr. Veronika Nagy (Utrecht, Netherlands)
Virtual asylum- Hiding Refugees from the all-seeing Eye of Europe

Prof. Dr. Simon Reich (Newark, USA)
Comparative Grand Strategies in the 21st Century: Formulating a New Research Program Linking Doctrine to Implementation

Prof. Dr. Solveig Richter (Erfurt, Germany)
Building a Legitimate Post-Conflict State? An Empirical Analysis of External Peace Missions and Informal Power Networks

Dr. Nataliia Slobodian (Warschau, Poland)
National security through the eyes of youth in Germany, Poland, Ukraine. New challenges: Person - State - Region

Dr. Rebecca Tapscott (Genf, Switzerland)
States of (In)security: State fragility, regime longevity and arbitrary governance in Uganda

Dr. Roos van der Haer (Leiden, Netherlands)
Lasting Wounds? The Immaterial Legacy of Conflict for Children

 

2017

Prof. Dr. Shahram Akbarzadeh (Melbourne, Australia)
State and Society in Iran: Identity and the Securitisation of Minority Policies

Dr. Charlotte Cross (Milton Keynes, Great Britain)
Security and Africa's 'Mobile Revolution': Social and Political Dimensions of Cyber Security in Tanzania

Dr. Sara de Simone (Triest, Italy)
Human security among South Sudanese self-settled refugees in Uganda: strategies of access to basic services

Prof. Dr. Jean-François Y. Deluchey (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Law Enforcement Agencies and the Death of Peripheral Youth in the Brazilian Amazon State of Pará

PD Dr. Emmanuel Droit (Berlin, Germany)
Historicizing the Airport Security Dispostive: on the emergence of the securitized subject (1970-2016)

Dr. Nina Engwicht / Dr. Sascha Werthes (Koblenz-Landau, Germany)
Transforming Conflict-Economies: Natural Resource Sector Reform and Human Security

Dr. Ofer Fridman (Reading, Great Britain)
The Russian Way of War: A History of Russian Strategic Thought from the Napoleonic Wars to Today

Dr. Demet Mousseau (Orlando, FL, USA)
The Victimization and Human Rights Violations of Women and Children in the Kurdish Armed Conflict in Turkey

Dr. Ulrich Petersohn (Liverpool, Great Britain)
The impact of mercenaries and PMSCs on civil war dynamics

Dr. Max Schaub (Mailand, Italy)
Patterns of cooperation in the aftermath of violence: the 2010 Osh riots in Kyrgyzstan

Dr. Olivier Schmitt (Odense, Denmark)
Learning from Afghanistan

Dr. Marcus Gijsbertus Hendrikus Schoonderbeek (Delft, Netherlands)
Securing Democratic Society. State Policies, Technological Surveillance and Spatial (Cross-)Boundary Practices

Dr. Chayan Vaddhanaphuti (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Negotiating Development, Imagining Communities: Towards Local Solutions to Land Conflicts Among Ethnic Communities and State Authorities in Thailand

Dr. Chris van der Borgh / Dr. Alexandra Abello Colak (Utrecht, Netherlands)
Local state-society transformations and everyday security provisioning in Medellín and San Salvador

Prof. Dr. Erika Weinthal / Prof. Dr. Jeannie Sowers (Durham, NC, USA)
Targeting Environmental Infrastructures: Water, Energy, and Civilians in the New Middle Eastern Wars

2016

Prof. Dr. Severine Autesserre (New York, NY, USA)
International Peacebuilding and Local Success: Assumptions, Myths, and Reality

Dr. Souhail Belhadj (Genf, Switzerland)
Opportunities and Obstacles facing Political Decentralization in Tunisia: Security Provision and Local State Authority in a Time of Transition

Dr. Sandra Brunnegger (Princeton, NJ, USA)
Securing the Peace? An indigenous community’s experience in Colombia

Dr. Asebe Regassa Debelo (Zürich, Switzerland)
Violence and Security Predicaments at the Margins of the State:The Case of Ethiopia-Kenya and Ethiopia-South Sudan Borders

Prof. Dr. David Dunn / Dr. Christopher Wyatt (Birmingham, Great Britain)
Nefarious Criminal and Terrorist Uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Dr. David Ehrhardt (Leiden, Netherlands)
Anachronisms in conflict: Explaining conflict resolution capabilities of traditional rulers in Nigeria

Dr. Rafael Fernandez de Castro (Mexico City, Mexico)
Building on Sand? Mexico's Security Institutional Design in the Context of the War on Drugs 2000-2015

Dr. Ofer Fridman (Reading, Great Britain),
American vs. Russian Views on ‘Hybrid Warfare’ and Its Politicization in the Context of the Ukrainian Crises

Prof. Dr. Gunther Hellmann (Frankfurt am Main, Germany)
Between Necessity and Possibility. The Challenge of Crafting Security Strategies

Dr. J. Olaf Kleist / Dr. Serhat Karakayali (Osnabrück, Germany)
Volunteering for Refugees in Europe: Civil Society, Solidarity, and Forced Migration along the Balkan Route amid the failure of the Common European Asylum System

Dr. Costas Laoutides / Dr. Anthony Ware (Melbourne, Australia)
Analysis of the causes, nature and capacities for peace in Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim—Rakhine Buddhist conflict

Prof. Dr. Tetiana Maliarenko (Uppsala, Sweden)
Strengthening Democratic Security Governance and the Rule of Law in Donbas: Civil-Military Cooperation and the Management of Current and Future Threats in Conflict-Affected Territories of Ukraine

Prof. Dr. Simon Reich (Newark, NJ, USA)
Turbulent Seas: US Strategic Doctrine and Multilateral Naval Operations in the 21st Century

PD Dr. Kerstin Rosenow-Williams / Dr- Katharina Behmer (Bochum, Germany)
Human Security Standards in Germany's Refugee Regime

Prof. Dr. Sten Rynning (Odense, Denmark)
Can NATO Learn Afghan Lessons? A Comparative Investigation of Multilateral Political-Military Change

 

2015

Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Brady (Christchurch, New Zealand)
China's Polar Strategy: Security, resources and science

Dr. Kai Chen (Hangzhou, China)
Comparative Study of Child Soldiering in Thailand and Myanmar

Dr. Noah Coburn (Bennington, USA)
Security, Transnationalism and Intervention: Exploring the Role of Security Contractors and Other Non-State Actors Following the Conflict in Afghanistan

Dr. Maggie Dwyer (Edinburgh, Great Britain)
Soldiering in Africa: New Roles, New Challenges

Dr. Philip Thomas Adrian Dyson (Egham, Great Britain)
Organising for Counterinsurgency: The Adaptation of Stabilisation and Counterinsurgency Doctrine in NATO

Dr. Senia Febrica (Jakarta, Indonesia)
The Securitization of Indonesia’s Maritime Borders: Outsourcing of Border Security to Militarized Non-Governmental Organizations

Dr. Catarina Frois (Lissabon, Portugal)
Human Security in Prison: Perspectives, Subjectivities and Experiences. A Contribution to the Anthropology of Security

Prof. Dr. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch / Dr. Florian Kern (Colchester, Great Britain)
Traditional Actors and Federal State Authorities in Interaction: Explaining Patterns of Security and Conflict Across American Indian Reservations

Dr. Adam Higazi (Cambridge, Great Britain)
Traditional and religious authorities on the Jos Plateau, central Nigeria: an analysis of their status, local influence, and responses to insecurity

Dr. Ulrike Krause (Marburg, Germany)
Global Refugee Protection and Local Refugee Engagement. Scope and Limits of the Agency of Refugee-led Community-based NGOs

Prof. Dr. Anne Kubai (Uppsala, Sweden)
Kenya: A country caught between opportunity and insecurity

Dr. Andrew Monaghan (London, Great Britain)
Towards Russian Mobilization: From a Nation in Arms to a Nation Armed?

Prof. Dr. Mark Ungar (New York. USA)
The State and Security Policy: Central America in International Context

 

2014

Dr. Hazel Cameron (St Andrews, Great Britain)
YOUR elephant destroyed MY crops. Natural Resources as a focal point of conflict and a medium of resolution between the state and traditional authorities in Zimbabwe

Dr. Alexander De Juan / Dr. Jan Pierskalla (Hamburg, Germany)
The Territorial Dynamics of Colonial State-Building

Prof. Dr. Bill Durodie (Victoria, Canada)
The Politics of Warning - Dynamics of Fatigue and Complacency

Prof. Dr. Isabelle Duyvesteyn / Prof. Dr. Georg Frerks (Utrecht, Netherlands)
Rebel Governance: Post-Conflict Life Under Non-State Rule

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Elischer (Lüneburg, Germany)
Salafism in the Sahel: State Strategies and Their Consequences

Prof. Dr. Romy Fröhlich / Dr. Christian Baden (München, Germany)
Imag(in)ing conflict and its resolution: The role of the media imagery for shaping the image of violent conflict and peace building

Dr. Togzhan Kassenova (Washington, USA)
Farewell to Nuclear Weapons: The Story of Kazakhstan

Dr. Cherry Leonardi (Durham, Great Britain)
Land governance and conflict resolution in South Sudan

Dr. Christophe Paulussen (Den Haag, Netherlands)
The Cyber Warfare Manual: A First Appraisal

Dr. Didier Peclard (Bern, Switzerland)
Security, Rebel Governance and the State in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (2006-2013)

Dr. Adam White (York, Great Britain)
The Demobilisation of Private Military Contractors

 

2013

Prof. Dr. Sarah Brooks (Columbus, Ohio, USA)
Insecure Democracy: Risk and Political Engagement in South Africa

Prof. Dr. James Carson (Kingston, Canada)
Indigenous Europe

Dr. Aschot Manutscharjan (Köln, Germany)
Russia's military doctrines and security strategies after the East-West Conflict (1991-2012)

Prof. Dr. Norbert Oberauer (Münster, Germany)
Legal Pluralism in Muslim Context: Conflict Regulation in Muslim Communities on the Basis of Customary and Islamic Law and its Relation to their Legal Environment

Dr. Coralie Pison Hindawi (Beirut, Lebanon)
Knowledge Production and Doctrine Formation in the Security Sector: Deconstructing narratives in the case of Iraq

Dr. Martin Steinwand / Dr. Nils Metternich (Stony Brook, USA)
Who joins and who fights? A unified network approach to predict collaboration and competition between ethnic groups

Prof. Dr. Robert Trager (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Fairness and the Construction of Conflict

Dr. Frederic Volpi (St. Andrews, Great Britain)
Tunisia as a "secure state": Salafism and post-revolutionary politics in the aftermath of Arab authoritarianism

PD Dr. Stefan Willer / PD Dr. Benjamin Bühler (Berlin, Germany)
Security and the Future: A Cultural Studies Approach

 

2012

Dr. Henrik Breitenbauch (Kopenhagen, Denmark)
Security Strategies as New Western Security Administration

Dr. Jennifer Burrell (Albany, NY, USA)
Securing Futures: Security, Democracy and the Limits of the State in a Mayan Community

PD Dr. Hendrik Fenz (Freiburg, Germany)
Sulh-Mandatory conflict settlements in and between traditional and modern elites: The case of Iraqi-Kurdistan

Dr. Murod Ismailov (Bischkek, Kyrgyzstan)
Uzbek 'Mahalla': Catalyst for Order and Security in Central Asia

Jorrit Kamminga (Valencia, Spain)
Public Security in Medellín: Building Human Security through Social Transformation of the Youth

Prof. Dr. Stefan Kaufmann (Freiburg, Germany)
Organizing Resilience: The Reconfiguration of Emergency Response in Germany

Prof. Dr. Oleg Leibovich (Perm, Russia)
Discourses and practices of Russian non-governmental organizations in the socio-political conflicts, 2011-2012, in a large privincial city

Dr. Walter Posch (Berlin, Germany)
The Security Apparatus of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Dr. Ruba Salih / Dr. Sophie Richter-Devroe (London, Great Britain)
Palestinian Refugees' Strategies of Conflict Resolution: Rconciling Citizenship Rights and Return

Mark Sedra (Waterloo, Canada)
Non-State Security Providers and Political Formation in Conflict-Affected States