Lessons Learned From Unsuccessful Conflict Intervention Strategies in South Sudan
An approach to peacebuilding that focuses solely on elections, democracy, and power-sharing is not adequate and needs to be supplemented by reconciliation and relationship-building processes to facilitate a more sustainable peace.
Assessing Armed and Unarmed Approaches to Peacekeeping
Unarmed civilian peacekeeping (UCP) has successfully engaged in the tasks traditionally associated with peacekeeping, demonstrating that peacekeeping does not require military personnel or the presence of weapons to carry out its violence prevention and civilian protection functions; furthermore, UCP can fulfill these functions in a way that also addresses some of the shortcomings of armed military peacekeeping.
Civics Textbooks, Peace Education, and Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka
While Sri Lankan civics textbooks affirm global norms around peace and citizenship education in the abstract, they also simultaneously contradict and/or undermine these in various ways in service of the government’s agenda.
What Drives Public Support for Humanitarian Interventions?
In the United States, military interventions conducted for humanitarian objectives receive significantly higher public support than interventions serving security interests.
Exploring the Complexities of Peace Agreement Design
More complex peace agreements with a greater number of provisions correspond with a greater probability of failed implementation and of armed conflict recurrence.
In The United States, Right-Wing Terrorism Is On The Rise
The number of terror attacks in the U.S. known to be motivated by right-wing ideologies has grown by over 35% in the last 7 years. Peace Science has found that symbolic targets, gender relations, and threats to identity and privilege are more important to motivating right-wing terrorism than objections to policy or material or economic factors.
Abandoning the INF Treaty Makes the World Less Secure
The United States has announced their withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Abandoning the treaty would make the world, especially Europe, less secure and mark another Cold-War-style arms race.
UNSCR 1325 Has Fallen Short of its “Transformative Potential”
Eighteen years later, the “gender perspective” required by Resolution 1325 has fallen short of its transformative potential. Peace practitioners must turn their gender lenses inward to examine their own cultures and practices as potentially part of the dual problems of gender inequality and insecurity.
Pitfalls of Top-Down Peacebuilding
The top-down approach to peacebuilding has largely failed at creating sustainable peace in places such as Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, and South Sudan. Yet, a small Congolese island in Lake Kivu has kept the peace despite holding known prerequisites for violent conflict. Their success is largely due to an emphasis on the local’s role in conflict transformation.
Female Inclusion in Afghan Security Forces: “Get on board or get out — it’s happening”
Militarism, warfare, and the military itself all depend on gender hierarchies—the privileging of masculinity and its associated traits over femininity and its associated traits—to function. Women in Afghanistan are especially aware of this of sexism and inequality as they seek to join their country’s military and police force.
EPA Considers Rolling Back Radiation Exposure Protections
The EPA is considering rolling back regulations on radiation exposure. This is a horrible idea, just ask the victims of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.
