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Art has long been a powerful tool for fostering understanding, reconciliation, and healing in conflict-affected societies. By transforming cultural, political, and ideological boundaries, artistic expression allows individuals to communicate, reflect, and envision new possibilities for coexistence. This issue of Peace Policy highlights the diverse ways that art contributes to peacebuilding, demonstrating its ability to cultivate empathy, challenge oppressive structures, and create spaces for dialogue.
Alison Ribeiro de Menezes explores the transformative role of theater in peacebuilding, emphasizing an “embodied dramaturgy of care” that fosters deep emotional connections. Vera Brandner discusses generative picturing, a photographic method that encourages self-reflection and dialogue. Jessica (Doe) Mehta highlights the role of poetry in Indigenous peacebuilding, illustrating how language preservation and storytelling are acts of resistance against colonial erasure. Paula Ditzel Facci introduces dancestorming as a method for decolonizing peacebuilding and peace education.
Together, these perspectives reveal that art is not just a supplementary tool in peacebuilding but a fundamental force for transformation. By engaging the senses, emotions, and intellect, artistic expression nurtures empathy, challenges injustice, and re-imagines pathways to peace, making it an essential component of sustainable reconciliation efforts.
Norbert Koppensteiner, guest editor
Peacebuilders and Arms Controllers of the World, (Re)Unite!
In my experience at the U.S. State Department, those working on nuclear arms control and those working on resolving violent conflicts could not be farther apart – literally. The Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability and my office in the Bureau of Conflict...
Back to the Future: Updating the Moral Critique of U.S. Nuclear Policy
On Aug. 9, 2025, I attended a Memorial Mass at Nagasaki’s Urakami Cathedral, which was destroyed by the atomic bomb of 1945 dropped only 500 meters away. At 11:02 a.m. – the same time the bomb nearly leveled the cathedral 80 years prior – both bells in the rebuilt...
‘Just Peace’ Alternatives to Escalating a New Nuclear Arms Race
President Trump ordered the U.S. to “test” nuclear weapons. While the actual impact of his order is still unclear, it is an escalation of risk. We are at the highest risk of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis, when President Kennedy estimated we faced a 1 in 3...
Rethinking the U.S. Strategy for Nuclear Nonproliferation
Over the past 50 years, existing nonproliferation treaties and initiatives have proved remarkably effective in preventing the emergence of additional nuclear-armed states. But nonproliferation efforts are at an inflection point: the risk of additional states...
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Research-based insights, commentary, and solutions to the global challenge of conflict and systemic violence
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Searching for Policy Solutions to Pressing Global Issues
Each issue features the writing of scholars and practitioners who work to understand the causes of violent conflict and systemic violence and who seek to contribute solutions in service of building more just and peaceful societies.
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