From Conflict in the Streets to Peace in the Society

From Conflict in the Streets to Peace in the Society

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

By: James Rupert

From Hong Kong’s boulevards and Nairobi’s Uhuru Park to the maidans of Kyiv, Cairo and Tunis, millions of people have massed in recent years to demand greater democracy and transparency from their governments. Dozens of similar campaigns have been fought more quietly. A quarter-century of worldwide growth in such non-violent civil resistance movements has sharpened a question both for their activists and for practitioners of traditional peacebuilding: How can such resistance movements and conflict-resolution work be combined to build more stable, democratic societies?

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & PreventionNonviolent Action

South Sudan Crisis Requires More Active U.S. Role, USIP’s Lyman Says

South Sudan Crisis Requires More Active U.S. Role, USIP’s Lyman Says

Thursday, January 9, 2014

U.S. officials and senators warned that South Sudan’s warring leaders risk losing American backing unless they end violence that has killed more than 1,000 people in the past month, and experts such as the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Princeton Lyman urged that the international community take a more assertive role.

Type: Analysis

How Drought Escalates Rebel Killings of Civilians

How Drought Escalates Rebel Killings of Civilians

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

By: Ore Koren

The 2011 famine in Somalia, caused by a prolonged drought, killed an estimated 260,000 people. But this was more than a natural disaster. Amid the starvation, food shortages prompted rebels of al-Shabab, the armed group fighting Somalia’s government and spreading terror abroad, to attack local farmers to seize their food reserves, causing even more civilian deaths. It’s a pattern that plays out in rural regions across the developing world.

Type: Analysis

Human RightsFragility & ResilienceViolent Extremism

Iraq’s Executions: Aftershock of ISIS’ Deadliest Atrocity

Iraq’s Executions: Aftershock of ISIS’ Deadliest Atrocity

Monday, August 22, 2016

By: USIP Staff

Iraq’s execution yesterday of 36 men whom it accused of committing the deadliest single atrocity by the Islamic State group underscores that any stabilization of Iraq will require international support to strengthen the country’s overburdened judicial system, according to USIP Iraq specialist Sarhang Hamasaeed. Iraq’s government came under intense pressure from the country’s Shia Muslim majority population, and from the Shia “Popular Mobilization Forces,” or pro-government militias, to conduc...

Type: Analysis

Violent ExtremismReconciliation

USIP Iftar: Don’t Just Tolerate Diversity, Embrace It

USIP Iftar: Don’t Just Tolerate Diversity, Embrace It

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

By: USIP Staff

The traditional Muslim call to prayer echoed across USIP’s atrium yesterday evening as the institute ushered in its third annual Iftar, marking the breaking of the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan. But it wasn’t just one imam’s voice. Instead, five Muslim clerics and a poetry reader from six traditions—Senegalese, Syrian, Pakistani, Iranian, Turkish and Moroccan—represented the theme of the event: The Islamic Mosaic.

Type: Analysis

Violent ExtremismReligion

Panel Urges New View of Middle East Refugees

Panel Urges New View of Middle East Refugees

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

By: Fred Strasser

The refugee crisis that has spread to Europe and the breakdown of the Middle East’s century-old political order demand new thinking about the economic role of displaced people and a reassessment of donor strategies to rebuild societies in conflict, a working group convened by the U.S. Institute of Peace concluded. The panel’s report, developed under USIP’s Manal Omar and Elie Abouaoun as part of Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force, calls for refugees to be viewed as potential e...

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & PreventionViolent ExtremismEnvironmentFragility & ResilienceHuman RightsEconomics

Provincial Reconstruction Teams: Military Relations with International and Nongovernmental Organizations in Afghanistan

Provincial Reconstruction Teams: Military Relations with International and Nongovernmental Organizations in Afghanistan

Monday, August 1, 2005

By: Michael J. Dziedzic;  Colonel Michael K. Seidl

Summary Deployed in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) combine military personnel and civilian staff from the diplomatic corps and developmental agencies. Their mission is to: extend the authority of the Afghan central government, promote and enhance security, and facilitate humanitarian relief and reconstruction operations. Twenty PRTs were currently in operation throughout Afghanistan as of June 2005: thirteen staffed by the U.S.-le...

Type: Special Report