Silence, Complicity, and Violence in the American Political System

Posted by & filed under Civilians in Conflict

Protests in the United States, and around the world, have drawn attention to state-sponsored violence against black people in particular and people of color in general. As Black Lives Matter protests continue, the names of the many people, whose deaths sparked this collective outrage, ring out. Social media posts tag the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery, among many others – individuals killed by state, and non-state, actors.

A Black Lives Matter protest in Washington, D.C. in June 2020. Photo: Geoff Livingston via Flickr CC BY

While important to identify these specific people, it is also important to note that the current protests are bigger than these individuals. The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis, Minnesota police has been seen as a catalyst for an unprecedented discussion of policing, reforming police, and defunding police in the United States. It is also, however, one of many instances of hesitation and indecision in the pursuit of justice for black people. These protests can be seen as a result of repressive state action – a vicious cycle of police use of force against citizens – but, they can also be understood as the result of what action has not been taken.

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Organizing for Peace: Mari Holmboe Ruge Interviewed by Kristian Berg Harpviken

Posted by & filed under PRIO Stories

From left: Assistant Professor Helga Hernes, Lecturer Hanne Haavind, and Mari Holmboe Ruge from the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities (NAVF), working on the study Research on Women in a committee under the Council for Social Science Research, 21 June 1976. Photo: NTB Scanpix

Mari Holmboe Ruge, interviewed by Kristian Berg Harpviken

Mari Holmboe Ruge’s life has been guided by the radical vision of a peaceful world, and a pragmatic conviction that robust organization is the key to achieving it. Mari played a critical role in PRIO’s first decade – analyzing, administering, advocating – to build the foundations for a knowledge-based global order. She later held posts in research funding, research policy, and research administration, where the same basic commitments prevailed. Throughout it all, in parallel to her professional career, Mari has been actively engaged in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

Born on 20 July 1934, Mari was a child of 11 at the close of the Second World War. During the war, her father was a leading figure in the non-violent Teachers’ Resistance. Her future husband, Herman Ruge, became a conscientious objector despite descending from a family of military officers – as did Johan Galtung, who was a close friend of the family and a prime force in founding PRIO.

Interviewing Mari Holmboe Ruge at her home in Oslo on 19 December 2018, I sensed the contours of a radical student collective, rooted in networks of family and friendship, and highly active in the debates of the Norwegian Students’ Society. It was this collective that became the core of PRIO.

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Toward a Social-Democratic Peace?

Posted by & filed under Governance, Peace Research, Peacebuilding

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.

One peak of violence was the Chinese Civil War 1927-1949. Source unknown

In relative terms, as a share of world population, the decline is even more striking. We are far from achieving world peace, as evidenced by the protracted and internationalized civil war in Afghanistan, the numerous violent conflicts in the Middle East, and periodic belligerent threats of fire and fury from regional and global powers.

But we may at least be hopeful that the world is moving in the right direction. How did we get this far, and where do we move next?

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Overcoming Mistrust in Afghanistan’s Peace Process

Posted by & filed under Peace Research

The hope of pathways to peace in Afghanistan, following the Doha Agreement on 29 February, has been crushed by mutual mistrust. Over a decade of my research on comparative peace process suggests that while all peace processes are fragile in the early phase, successful ones are characterized by political and rebel leaders with a high level of trust in the process and a willingness to interact more frequently to deliver on the commitment.

Signing ceremony for the Afghan Peace Agreement in Doha, Qatar, on February 29, 2020. Photo: State Department via Wikimedia Commons

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‘It should change’: Young people on skin colour and national belonging in Norway

Posted by and & filed under Migration

The fight against racism and discrimination cannot be won without the silent, non-targeted, majorities’ active contribution and participation – recognizing one another as equal human beings, but significantly also going beyond this, to call out and change the structures and practices that prevent real equality. This is true whether we look to the US, in Norway, or Denmark and Sweden, France or the UK, or anywhere around the world

Youth march in a Black Lives Matter demonstration in June 2020 in Oslo. although recent demonstrations have made this research newly relevant, these findings are from 2015 and still resonate today. Photo: Teuta Kukleci

Opening any newspaper in Norway over the past week, as well as on social media, the stories of experiences of discrimination and racism, often intertwined in an everyday life which was not completely defined by such experiences, are courageously and with a sense of purpose being shared. Our research about migration-related diversity in Norway at PRIO, has time and time again confirmed what everyone should know by now: people of colour living in Norway, not least those born in Norway, experience unwarranted attention and questions, experience co-citizens implicit bias and overt racism. Mostly, these experiences are also mixed-in with other impressions – of inclusion, of opportunities which are made equal, of individual humans who see, who try to understand, who go that extra mile, who act justly.

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The Role of State-Supported Disinformation in the Wake of COVID-19

Posted by & filed under Beyond the COVID Curve

Photo: Charles Deluvio via Unsplash

On April 1 the European External Action Service (EEA) released a report alleging China and Russia had carried out a coordinated disinformation campaign around the origin and the spread of COVID-19 to sway public opinion abroad and create divisions among EU members. The report claims that China and Russia are spreading targeted disinformation through their media channels and official statements. In a subsequent report released by the EEA China, Russia and Iran are accused of converging their narratives, collectively alluding that the virus is a Western bioweapon and spreading false information around public health efforts in the EU.

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Coronavirus and the (Wannabe) Dictators

Posted by , and & filed under Beyond the COVID Curve, Peace Research

In December of last year, the Chinese state jailed a physician in the city of Wuhan. His crime? Attempting to warn authorities against the occurrence of a potentially contagious and deadly new virus. The physician, Dr. Li Wenliang, has since died from the same disease whose spread he tried to contain.

A funeral in May 2020 in the favelas of São Paulo. Photo: Léu Britto | @fotovielas

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Ramadan and Social Responsibility During Coronavirus

Posted by , and & filed under Beyond the COVID Curve, Religion

Muslims have just celebrated Eid al-Fitr, the festival that marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting. The month of fasting, which is demanding in itself, has been even harder this year with the current social distancing requirements. Usually the high point of each day would be gathering with family and friends to break the fast with the evening meal, known as iftar. This year these customary gatherings have not been possible in the same way as in other years, for Muslims across the world.

Mosque in Jakarta 2011. Photo: portable soul via Flickr

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The Nordic Countries and Sweden: the battle against COVID-19 continues

Posted by & filed under Beyond the COVID Curve

Field hospital constructed outside Östra Sjukhuset in Gothenburg in response to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Photo Helén Sjöland via Wikimedia Commons

Almost two months have passed since my last post about the management of COVID-19 in Norway and Sweden. How outsiders, including myself, see Sweden since has indeed changed a lot. Sweden was recently downgraded on the Standard Ethics Rating (SER) due to flaws in their handling of COVID-19, which allegedly put not only Swedes but also other Europeans at risk. When faced with questions and criticism about the strategy, supporters of the Swedish model have written off critics as expats who don’t understand statistics and communicable diseases, or incompetent scientists. Increasingly the arguments seem more like a culture war – at least on social and traditional media. Specific characteristics such as complacency and exceptionalism, worship of the state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, and the Swedish public administration model are among the topics that have been meticulously analyzed and discussed. During the last two months, however, a picture of more deep-rooted issues has started to emerge.

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