These are difficult times for peace supporters. Faced with Russia’s brutal aggression in Ukraine and rising militarization in the United States and around the world, we are troubled and uncertain about what to do. Millions of us marched against the Iraq war 20 years...
When the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban asserted that the war was over and that they now had control of the entire country. But just a year into Taliban control, an armed opposition front is taking shape, albeit only in a few provinces. Some...
I grew up in the midst of a civil war in Sri Lanka. I have lived through the curse of violence and seen the prejudice and hate passed on by one generation to another. Sri Lanka has experienced many cycles of violence over the years. At each cycle, it was the youth...
Youth are key to creating sustainable peace, a just peace that is locally self-renewing, because they have roles, needs, and ideas that shape communities and cultures and they are uniquely-positioned change agents. As liminal actors connected to childhood and...
Recent scholarship has demonstrated that youth are not mere subjects of policy interventions, but vital actors in peacebuilding. I place this finding as the central starting point for peace research with youth in Colombia. For nearly a decade I have engaged in...
Melanie Greenberg is President and CEO of the Alliance for Peacebuilding. In her work on international conflict resolution, she has helped design and facilitate public peace processes in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, and the Caucasus. In September 2015, the...
Scott Appleby is Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. As a professor of history at Notre Dame, he specializes in the study of global religion. How might peace research, peacebuilding practices and peace policies...
David Cortright is Director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is coeditor of Drones and the Future of Armed Conflict (Chicago University Press, 2015) and author of Ending Obama’s War (Paradigm, 2011). The connections between...
Peter Wallensteen Peter Wallensteen is Richard G. Starmann Sr. Research Professor at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and Senior Professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Sweden’s Uppsala University. His most recent research...
Robert Johansen Robert Johansen is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He specializes in issues of international ethics and global governance, the United Nations, and peace and world order...
Jennifer McCoy Jennifer McCoy is Distinguished University Professor at Georgia State University and Director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program. She has met frequently with negotiators and other Colombian actors during peace talks. The year 2014 marked the 50th...
John Paul Lederach John Paul Lederach is an internationally known peacebuilder and teacher who contributes to the Peace Accords Matrix at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. In October 2012, formal talks between the Colombian government and the largest...
Francisco Diez Francisco Diez has extensive experience mediating conflicts throughout Latin America and is actively working on the Colombia peace process. Colombia is a country of contrasts. While military dictatorships and foreign indebtedness characterized most of...
Rachel Fairhurst and Kristen Wall Civil society groups can play an important role in peacebuilding. One example is the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States, an innovative approach to international development policy. The New Deal is led by self-identified...
Sarah Smiles Persinger Regional Intergovernmental Organizations (RIGOs) — such as the European Union, Arab League, Organization of American States, and similar organizations — are playing a growing role in peace and security affairs. The complexity of global security...
John Katunga Religious institutions, especially the Anglican and Catholic churches, have played a leading role in peacebuilding in Sudan for decades. Their role in the process leading to South Sudan’s independence is the most recent example. Through a process of...
Peter Quaranto The United States has been actively engaged in seeking to prevent a return of North-South war in Sudan. The U.S. worked with international partners to assure that the Southern Sudan referendum in January was on time and peaceful and that the results...
Kevin Dugan and Patrick McCormick Last fall a delegation representing the Sudan Conference of Catholic Bishops visited the University of Notre Dame to reach out to the Catholic community in the United States. They came to seek help in assuring a peaceful outcome for...