Publications
Articles, publications, books, tools and multimedia features from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest news, analysis, research findings, practitioner guides and reports, all related to the conflict zones and issues that are at the center of the Institute’s work to prevent and reduce violent conflict.
Summer 2015 Insights Newsletter
Insights highlights major questions on the research and practice of peace and conflict, to more than 10,000 subscribers from around the world.
Burundi at the Brink
Burundi is back at the brink. Less than a decade after the end of its civil war, a political conflict over the president’s attempt to stay in office for a disputed third term risks escalating into wider violence, policy specialists say. Police are fighting protesters who say that President Pierre Nkurunziza is violating the country’s post-civil war constitution by seeking a third term. They dispute a court ruling that authorized Nkurunziza’s re-election bid.
Burundi Unrest Evokes Hurdles for U.S. in Preventing Threats
The attempted coup in the tiny African country of Burundi, after weeks of unrest that has killed more than 20 people, provided immediate examples of quandaries for peacebuilding during a discussion at USIP this week: how U.S. diplomacy can emphasize prevention to counter threats, and how best to support young people to deter dangerous forms of extremism.
Feingold Urges DRC Reforms, Great Lakes Regional Cooperation in Remarks at USIP
Africa's Great Lakes region is ripe for progress in resolving its deadly conflicts, particularly in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but it will take deeper regional cooperation and the DRC's full implementation of internal reforms that it has already agreed to, Russell D. Feingold, the U.S. special envoy for the Great Lakes and the DRC, said at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) on February 20.
USIP: Teaching African Peacekeepers How to Keep the Peace
USIP trained hundreds of African peacekeepers in seven nations this year in how to negotiate and mediate the peace.
Empowering Local Peacebuilders
Peacebuilding operations in conflict and post-conflict societies often undermine local capacity, ownership, and sustainability. The acknowledged remedy is to empower local actors to take the lead in planning and implementing programs, but few empowerment strategies that work in practice have been documented and explained.
Youth in Rwanda and Burundi
This report compares the results of parallel research projects carried out among impoverished, nonelite youth in postconflict Rwanda and Burundi. Arguing that the plight and priorities of nonelite youth should be of serious national and international concern, particularly in countries that have unusually youthful populations that are overwhelmingly poor and undereducated, it finds striking differences between the groups, with a significantly bleaker picture for youth in Rwanda.
Political Trends in the African Great Lakes Region
Despite recent elections in Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda and upcoming • elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Great Lakes region shows worrying trends toward electoral authoritarianism and political fragmentation, with new divisions that intensify the potential for confrontation.
Negotiating Peace and Confronting Corruption
In Negotiating Peace and Confronting Corruption, Bertram Spector argues that the peace negotiation table is the best place to lay the groundwork for good governance.
Refugees and IDPs after Conflict
This report reviews the challenges facing returning refugees and internally displaced persons after protracted conflict, questioning the common wisdom that the solution to displacement is, in almost all cases, to bring those uprooted to their places of origin, regardless of changes in the political, economic, psychological, and physical landscapes.