The First Steps in the PRIO-Uppsala Connection: Peter Wallensteen Interviewed by Siri Aas Rustad

Posted by & filed under Conflict Patterns, Peace Research, PRIO Stories

Peter Wallensteen in 2016. Photo: Barbara Johnston / University of Notre Dame

Peter Wallensteen, interviewed by Siri Aas Rustad

PRIO was the engine of our Nordic peace research network. To ‘go to PRIO’ meant to be updated on the state of the art, to find out what was going on. The ideas generated could then be taken back home and used to build up one’s own activities.

Siri Aas Rustad: You have been immensely important for the development of peace research. You have made your mark in Sweden, but also internationally as a pioneer in gender, peace and security studies and through the creation of the leading data collection project, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. If you think back on your childhood, was there anything in particular that influenced you in the direction of international relations and peace research?

Peter Wallensteen: I was born in 1945. My family had always been interested in international questions, and we travelled a fair bit. For example, when I was 10, we went by boat and car to England. The large political event that made me interested in international politics was the Suez Crisis with invasion of Egypt by Israel, France and the United Kingdom in 1956, at the same time as the Soviet Union invaded Hungary.

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Facing terror: The possibility of hope and the need to confront hatred

Posted by , and & filed under Law and Ethics, Migration, Religion

In the wake of the foiled terrorist attack at a mosque outside Oslo on 10 August, and the widespread solidarity seen outside mosques around Norway on the morning of Eid, we reflect on the prospects for hope and for the endurance of social fabric. We do so by drawing on our research on responses to the July 22 terror in 2011, and on our migration research.

A group gathered in support outside Thon Hotel August 11 where Al-Noor Islamic Center had moved Eid celebrations after the attack. Many held signs reading #tryggibønn (safe in prayer). Photo: Samarbeidsrådet for tros- og livssynssamfunn, used with permission.

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Racially-Motivated Violence in the United States: What We Call It and Why It Matters

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A memorial for shooting victims in El Paso. Photo: Ruperto Miller, public domain.

An August 3, 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas highlights the continuing presence of racially-motivated violence in the United States. The shooter expressed white nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiments in a manifesto written prior to the attack, and the American news media has begun to frame the attack as one of “domestic terrorism.” As the American public waits to learn how the shooter will be formally charged, how the attack is discussed and described in the media has implications for the public perception of and response to such violence. The language used to describe attacks like this, including the attack in Norway just before Eid, is important for recognizing them as a part of a much larger trend of white-nationalist violence.

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Charting the impact of ‘gender-sensitive’ DDR and SSR programs in post-conflict reconstruction

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Over the past twenty years feminist activists, civil society groups, and international organisations have argued that there is a need to actively consider gender in all aspects of security policy. Demanding shifts in the way that Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) and Security Sector Reform (SSR) programmes are delivered has been one of the most… Read more »

Droneland: Towards a Domestic Drone Theory

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  In December 2018, a civilian drone operator allegedly disrupted hundreds of flights at Gatwick Airport in the UK by flying an industrial class drone across the flight path of aircrafts, causing a major political and security incident. To be sure, the Gatwick drone was neither the first nor the last such incident – similar… Read more »

Why should the Sudanese cautiously celebrate the political declaration?

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As the Sudanese have ever more reason to celebrate the political declaration signed by the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) and Transitional Military Council (TMC), one may have some reservations and concerns but with optimism of a better future for Sudan.

Protestors in Sudan in April. Photo: Hind Mekki via Flickr

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A new approach to assessing the climate-conflict relationship

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Focusing in on both the agreement and the disagreement sheds new light on the linkages between climate and armed conflict. In our recent analysis, published in the journal Nature last week, we conducted an expert assessment of the relationship between climate and conflict. Previous studies have both asserted and refuted linkages between climate variability and… Read more »

Heating up: mediation and climate change

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Mediation – the process of helping groups in, or at risk of, armed conflict settle their differences peacefully – rarely gets the attention it deserves given how much bloodshed it has averted. In the twenty years following 1988, most of the world’s major armed conflicts were resolved by agreement, leading to a decline in both… Read more »

Liberia’s Women Veterans: War, roles and reintegration

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Leena Vastapuu (2018) Liberia’s Women Veterans: War, roles and reintegration, London: Zed Books Ltd. Book review by Linn Marie Reklev Scholars and policy makers put increasing attention on the role of women in conflict and peacebuilding. However, women are often portrayed as “victims”, and their multiple roles in conflict are often ignored. Leena Vastapuu’s new… Read more »