The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, the Ukrainian human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, and the Russian human rights organization Memorial for their promotion of “the right to criticize power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.” This year’s prize constitutes an important and timely recognition… Read more »
Author: Ida Rudolfsen
2021 – A Bad Year for World Peace
After a declining trend since 2014 for the number of people killed in armed conflict, approximately 84,000 people died last year. Since 2014, we have seen a global declining trend for the number of people killed in armed conflict, but in 2021 this trend experienced a sharp reversal. New figures from the Uppsala Conflict Data… Read more »
War and Food Insecurity: New Survey Evidence from Ukraine
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, food insecurity and food prices have become increasingly concerning. However, the focus has largely been on the consequences of war for the international market and food insecurity abroad, leaving less attention to the lack of food among civilians in Ukraine. Ukrainians have fled their homes, lost their jobs and… Read more »
The World Food Program Won the Nobel Peace Prize. Does Food Aid Boost Peace?
The Norwegian Nobel Committee named this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, recognizing the World Food Program (WFP) for “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”
Inter-group Conflict: The Role of Weak State Structures and Exclusion
Why do non-state groups engage in violent conflict with each other? Non-state conflict has been widespread in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including D.R. Congo, Sudan, Somalia and Burundi. This type of fighting includes both formally and informally organised groups who fight each other without engaging the state, such as Al-Shabaab and the Ogaden National… Read more »
A Climate of Conflicts?
Political violence correlates strongly with climate: Civil conflict risk is seven to ten times higher in dry and tropical climates than in continental climate zones. Yet, there is little evidence that climatic variability and change are important in understanding this pattern. The prospect of climate change causing forced migration and food and economic insecurity, meanwhile,… Read more »
Islam and Conflict
The number of civil wars worldwide has fallen in recent years, but meanwhile the number of civil wars in Muslim countries is increasing. From early on in the 21st century, we have also seen a marked growth in the number of active groups of Islamist insurgents. The media in Western countries focus strongly on terrorism… Read more »
Education Creates Peace
On 10 December Nobel’s Peace Prize 2014 is awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai. Critical voices have claimed that their work is more about rights activism than promoting peace and that there is no obvious association between education and peace. Research into the causes of war suggests, however, that the Nobel Committee was right… Read more »