Author: Marianne Dahl

Civil Society Faces an Uphill Struggle to Defend Democracy

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 »

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 »

A Popular Uprising Can Oust Putin

Putin’s place at the long table in the Kremlin is more insecure than ever, and even though he will cling to power, it is not inevitable that he will succeed. Fears that the so-called colour revolutions will spread to Russia have dogged Putin’s time in power. Colour revolutions in two of Russia’s neighbours, Georgia and… Read more »

Women’s Well-Being and the US Election

The PRIO – GWPS Women Peace and Security Index is now available as a US edition, with scores for each of the 50 individual states and the District of Colombia.[1] With the US election today, highlighting ongoing struggles and gender-related conflicts, we ask; what does gender have to do with it? It turns out, quite… Read more »

Oppression and Regime Survival: Will Trump’s reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement bring about his exit?

Since George Floyd’s brutal killing by the police in May, demonstrations have spread to more than 2,000 major cities and villages in the United States. Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) is probably the most widespread movement in the country’s history. In addition, we have seen huge global support, with demonstrations in more than 50 countries. This… Read more »

The Rise and Fall of the Twitter Revolution

The year 2019 ended with a new wave of non-violent protests. In every corner of the world there have been huge movements gathering. This marks the end of a decade that opened with the Arab Spring; a decade that might go down in history as the decade of mass protests.

“We need to build bridges”: Project Leader Marianne Dahl and GPS Director Torunn L. Tryggestad on the Women, Peace and Security Index

The Women, Peace and Security Index is one of the most comprehensive measures of women’s well-being around the world. This collaboration between PRIO and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) goes back to 2016. Funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Index ranks countries based on indicators of women’s inclusion,… Read more »

What “Chernobyl” Teaches Us About the Superiority of Democracy

Authoritarian structures made Chernobyl an unavoidable accident. The HBO series “Chernobyl” has garnered rave reviews all over the world. Norwegian newspapers have been almost unanimous in their praise of the series. And with good reason. This is television drama at its very best. One largely overlooked aspect of the series is what it teaches us… Read more »

Measuring Women, Peace and Security

Last week, GIWPS together with the International Peace Institute and the Government of Norway cohosted a discussion on linking the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index to WPS in practice. The WPS Index, launched in October 2017 by GIWPS and PRIO at the United Nations, draws on recognized international data sources to rank 153 countries on peace and… Read more »

Zimbabwe: from Coup to Democratization?

In the early hours of the morning on 15 November, the Zimbabwean military placed President Mugabe under house arrest. The coup against one of the longest serving rulers in Africa appears to have been a reaction to Mugabe’s ouster of his vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa, to pave the way for his wife as the successor to… Read more »