University of Notre Dame
Kroc Institutde for International Peace Studies

2021

The Continuing Challenge of Sanctions Policy Reform

The Continuing Challenge of Sanctions Policy Reform

Since the end of the Cold War, economic sanctions have become an essential instrument of global and national foreign policy, imposed to end civil wars and thwart nuclear proliferation, mass atrocities, and terrorism. But over the past decade sanctions have become...

Countering Terrorism the Right Way

Countering Terrorism the Right Way

After 20 years, culminating in the collapse of the U.S.-supported government in Afghanistan, it is clear that militarized counterterrorism policies have failed. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq led to increased numbers of global terrorist attacks which remain at high...

Seven Peacebuilding Reflections on Violent Extremism

Seven Peacebuilding Reflections on Violent Extremism

What have peacebuilding experts learned from twenty years of counterterrorism? Here are seven reflections. 1. Violent extremism results from fear and frustration paired with the fantasy of a “pure” society.  Since 2001, Muslims have spoken out about the stigma they...

Gender and Counterterrorism

Gender and Counterterrorism

In the first 15 years of the United Nations’ post-9/11 counterterrorism program, gender issues were hardly mentioned. This, despite the clearly stated intention of violent extremists and terrorist groups to suppress gender equality, women’s rights, girls’ education,...

Turning against war

Turning against war

In April 1971, more than a thousand Vietnam veterans descended on Washington, DC, for a series of antiwar actions dubbed Dewey Canyon III, “a limited incursion into the land of Congress.” For a week the veterans demonstrated and lobbied government officials to end the...

Healing the wounds of war and seeking reconciliation

Healing the wounds of war and seeking reconciliation

When I flew out of Viet Nam in 1968, it was with huge relief that I was departing safely after a tumultuous year that made clear to me and the world that America would never win this war. But I was also troubled, confused, and angry. The Vietnamese people were...

Locating Agency for Refugees 

Locating Agency for Refugees 

According to UNCHR, the United Nations refugee agency, at the end of 2019 there were 79.5 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, including 26 million refugees and 4.2 million asylum seekers. The percentage of the world’s population that are displaced is at an...