Forward from Search for Common Ground
Voters across the United States will go to the polls on November 5th to vote for their 47th President, a new Congress, and thousands of important officials and ballot measures at the state and local levels. The Presidential election is forecasted to be close, and the run-up has been marked … Read more
Event Summary: The Knowledge and Practice of Decolonial and Indigenous Environmental Peacebuilding
Event date: November 11, 2024 Hosted by War Prevention Initiative and the Environmental Peacebuilding Association In 2024, the War Prevention Initiative and the Environmental Peacebuilding Association released a Peace Science Digest Special Issue on Decolonial and Indigenous Approaches to Environmental Peacebuilding. This event was designed as a highly participatory, … Read more
Campaign Finance Reform: A Pathway to Peaceful Elections
by Padmini Das This essay was selected for publication as part of the War Prevention Initiative’s Essay Un-contest on Peaceful Elections. In any functioning democracy, elections are not just a mechanism for selecting leaders; they are also a crucial process for legitimizing governance and ensuring political stability. However, the integrity of … Read more
Votes, Voices, and the Far Right
by Irina Militaru This essay was selected for publication as part of the War Prevention Initiative’s Essay Un-contest on Peaceful Elections. It’s scorching hot, and I’m in a field in the middle of nowhere (i.e., the industrial zone of Frankfurt, couched between two factories and the highway), triple-checking if … Read more
Standing United in Wisconsin: Promoting Peaceful Elections in a Contested State
by Lisa Inks and Eli Kelling (with Urban Rural Action) with photographs by John Noltner This essay was selected for publication as part of the War Prevention Initiative’s Essay Un-contest on Peaceful Elections. Southeast Wisconsin not only sits at the epicenter in a swing state of what will be a … Read more
Gaza and Israel: A Violent Year and the Urgent Need to Stop the Killing
Introduction We mark a somber milestone: one year has passed since the onset of the relentless violence in Gaza, leading to unimaginable death and suffering. We are thinking about all Israelis and Palestinians whose lives and communities were shattered by the events of last year. A ceasefire is about saving lives; every minute that passes … Read more
Building Peace midst Conflict: My Journey in South Sudan’s Path Towards Elections
by Lona James Luduro Elia This essay was selected for publication as part of the War Prevention Initiative’s Essay Un-contest on Peaceful Elections. As a young woman born in Yei who grew up in Juba, South Sudan, I have witnessed first-hand the tumultuous journey of my country’s quest for democracy. … Read more
Selected Essays Announced in Peaceful Elections Essay “Un-Contest”
We at the War Prevention Initiative (WPI) are pleased to announce that four essays on peaceful elections have been selected for publication. In June 2024, we launched a call for essays on peaceful elections. In anticipation of a contentious national election period in the United States, we were interested in exploring how we can ensure … Read more
Urgent Call to Stop the Bombing and Invasion of Lebanon; Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza
For Immediate Release: September 30, 2024 PORTLAND, OR – In response to the violent assault on Lebanon and the ongoing war in Gaza by the Israeli government, the War Prevention Initiative urgently calls on the Biden administration to use its influence to prevent a full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon and to achieve a ceasefire … Read more
The Reassuring Illusion of Victory in War
“Liturgies of triumph”—public rituals that symbolically reinforce and celebrate the idea that the U.S. always wins its wars, “embedded in national calendars, public commemorations, and team sports”—shape the understanding and practice of wartime, both producing an expectation for military victory and assuaging public anxieties that emerge from its absence in most contemporary warfare.
Justifying Violence with the “Less-than-Lethal Paradigm”
The “less-than-lethal paradigm” is a military strategy aimed at managing the popular perception of violence by using less deadly and more concealed methods to justify imperial actions in a way that aligns with the principles of liberal democracy.
