Clara Baumann Receives Albert Ballin Award

Former MPIfG researcher Clara Baumann was recently honored with the Albert Ballin Award for Globalization Research for her doctoral dissertation, “‘Return of Dependency’ or ‘A New Hope’? East-South Investment and Interdependent Development in Colombia.” The award was presented to her during the third Albert Ballin Forum in Hamburg on May 12 this year. Worth 5,000 euros, it is awarded by Hapag-Lloyd AG every four years to early-career researchers whose work leads to a better understanding of the opportunities and risks of globalization. Baumann explores in her dissertation if and to what extent Chinese direct investment in the Global South generates new development or perpetuates existing dependencies. Using the example of Colombia, she compares the investment strategies of US and Chinese multinationals. Her results suggest that, under certain circumstances, Chinese investors are more flexible, react faster to local conditions, and tend to be more willing to adapt to state demands and labor standards in their target country. The study builds on 64 expert and participant interviews as well as two years of ethnographic field research in Colombia. Clara Baumann was a doctoral researcher at the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE) between 2019 and 2024, after which she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She took up a postdoctoral position with the University of Münster at the beginning of 2026.