Category: Peacebuilding

Institutionalizing the Dreadful Victory in Post-War Sri Lanka

On August 5, 2020, over 11 million voters cast their votes to elect the 225 members in the Sri Lankan Lower House. With a two-thirds majority of the Sri Lankan People’s Democratic Alliance in this election, the Rajapaksa brothers, who were front and center in Sri Lankan politics from 2005 until 2015, have now made… Read more »

Toward a Social-Democratic Peace?

The post–World War II period has shown a clear, albeit erratic, decline of organized violence. Violence in this period peaked during the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and most recently the Syrian Civil War, but the peaks are declining over time and the long-term trend in absolute numbers is clearly downward…. Read more »

A Global Call: Will COVID-19 bring more peace to the world?

This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near future and long after we… Read more »

Ceasefires in the Time of COVID-19

This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near future and long after we… Read more »

Making a Regional Peacemaker

On March 3 the PRIO-CSS Jordan seminar, “Preserving Spaces for Dialogue in the Middle East”, was situated by the shore of the Dead Sea. The view was both beautiful and thematically fitting, because while most people associate the Dead Sea with a rather exotic seaside tourist destination, and the Kingdom of Jordan with being a… Read more »

Science Diplomacy in the Middle East

Research-based dialogue can make substantial contributions to addressing challenges in the Middle East. By mobilizing diverse knowledge milieus, drawing attention to new insights, and emphasizing the normative commitment to truth, we can lay the foundations for dialogue between various states and actors who otherwise find it difficult to interact. At the launch of the new… Read more »

Creating a Third Space in the Cyprus Conflict: Mete Hatay Interviewed by Cindy Horst

Mete Hatay, interviewed by Cindy Horst Seeing victim become perpetrator, perpetrator become victim – seeing them change places depending on the situation – triggered a lot of questions in my mind… Whatever you imagine for the future, you always construct it from the past. And you cannot say, ‘let’s put the past behind us and… Read more »

Will There Be Peace in Westeros?

In my last Game of Thrones blog post I looked into whether there were any similarities between the War of the Five Kings and modern war in the real world. I found a surprisingly large number of similarities. Now that we have seen the end GoT, and we know who sits on the (non)-Iron Throne… Read more »

Feminism and Empiricism: Two Contributions to Improving Women’s Inclusion in Peace Processes

Academics and policymakers can probably agree on the need for a more solid research base in order to effectively support the inclusion of women in peace processes. Our chapter in the newly released Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace and Security, argues that improving dialogue among scholars and practitioners requires acknowledging that different forms of research… Read more »