I am Niklas Hänze, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Politics and Public Administration and the Cluster of Excellence The Politics of Inequality at the University of Konstanz. I study how political institutions and international organizations shape responses to environmental risks and how those responses feed back into political behavior and social outcomes.
A central thread running through my research is how domestic and international political institutions shape populations’ exposure and vulnerability to climate impacts. At the domestic level, I examine how political factors like armed conflict amplify vulnerability to natural hazards, turning environmental events into humanitarian crises. At the international level, I study the allocation of climate finance: what drives how adaptation and mitigation aid is distributed sub-nationally, and whether multilateral funding reaches those most at risk. A third line of research explores the feedback loop in the other direction: how environmental shocks shape political behavior and institutions, affecting trust, conflict dynamics, and long-term climate adaptation.
My work has been published in Political Geography, the Journal of Peace Research, and Africa Spectrum. Methodologically, I primarily rely on quantitative and spatial approaches to causal inference. I received my PhD degree from the University of Konstanz in March 2026 (summa cum laude). Prior to my doctoral studies, I earned a BA from Osnabrück University and an MA from the University of Konstanz. I’m also the recipient of the Christiane-Rajewsky-Award (2023) by the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung).