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.
Q&A: Amid Boko Haram’s War and Postponed Vote, What Prospects for Nigeria’s Election?
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, begins 2015 at the brink of both a historically important election and a breakdown of state authority that is simultaneously cause and effect of the Islamist Boko Haram rebellion. Nigeria’s ability to govern itself effectively will be critical in determining whether Boko Haram can be contained or continues to grow into a trans-national threat like that of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Middle East.
Pakistan Massacre of Schoolchildren: What Has It Changed?
Even having lost 50,000 people killed in terrorism-related violence over more than a decade, Pakistan was stunned by the Taliban massacre of 145 schoolchildren and others at an Army school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. With some commentators calling the event “Pakistan’s September 11,” the U.S. Institute of Peace convened experts to assess whether the country may actually have reached a decision point that could yield a more consistent and effective state campaign against terrorism.
India’s Nobel Winner Takes His Fight for Children Global
Indian children’s rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi is using his Nobel Peace Prize to build a global campaign to end child labor and enslavement. He outlined his plan at the U.S. Institute of Peace last week in his first visit to the U.S. since receiving the award.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Explains Feminist Foreign Policy
When Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström announced last year that her government would pursue a “feminist foreign policy,” the idea “met with considerable derision,” she says. “We call it the giggling factor.” And where the response was not quiet laughter, it was often confusion, including in Washington. “No one knows what this means” for Sweden’s approach to conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war, a Foreign Policy headline declared in December.
Urgent Imperative: Get Afghanistan’s Government Working
Ten weeks after the Taliban briefly captured Kunduz, Afghanistan’s fifth-largest city, neither the fractured government nor the country’s political class is showing signs of heeding that wake-up call—or the other flashing warnings that the 14-month-old government is close to failure. While the United States quickly announced the reversal of its planned withdrawal of forces from the country, the factions in Kabul must figure out how to cooperate in governing, and Washington must do all it can to advance that, analysts say.
From Conflict in the Streets to Peace in the Society
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?
Tunisia: Democratic but Precarious
Amid central Tunisia’s dry farmlands, the city of Sidi Bouzid bustled one recent day under warm autumn sunshine. Street vendors and shoppers jostled under the roof of a new, open-air market, selling and buying produce or cheap clothes. Seven years after an impoverished street vendor in this city immolated himself and ignited the Arab Spring revolutions, his homeland has achieved a precarious stability. By many measures the Arab world’s only democracy, Tunisia remains hobbled by corruption, unemployment and violent extremism.
In Congo, Peace Means a Halt to ‘Brutal, Illegal Mining’
Pétronille Vaweka, a Congolese grandmother, has mediated local peace accords in her homeland’s wars. But now, she says, one of Africa’s longest, bloodiest conflicts can be solved only if the United States and other democracies “will wake up” to protect their own economic and security interests.
Russia’s War on Moldova Will Be Political in 2024. And Then?
As Ukraine defends its independence and democracy against Russia’s invasion, tiny Moldova confronts a parallel Russian “hybrid war” — and the past 12 weeks have sharpened this battle for Moldova in 2024. Moldova advanced its accession to the European Union and joined EU sanctions against Russians driving the war on Ukraine. Moldova’s government scheduled a referendum to ratify the country’s future as a European democracy after more than 150 years as a militarized frontier of Russian empires. Russia’s malign uses of information, election interference and capacity to trigger a real war — a second front against Europe — heighten the urgency to strengthen Moldova’s resilience and energize its pro-democracy constituency in 2024.
Teaching Peace: Nelson Mandela’s Story in a World of Conflicts
A world reeling from the brutal horrors of our current wars will next week mark (or perhaps overlook) the 10th anniversary of the death of a peacemaking icon: South Africa’s liberation leader and former president, Nelson Mandela. Amid continued or escalated wars — Israel-Gaza, Ukraine-Russia, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan and others — USIP this month hosted Georgia’s senator, the Reverend Raphael Warnock, in a discussion of Mandela’s legacy and immediate relevance. Another Georgian, Decatur High School history teacher Kristen Embry, introduced Warnock. She spoke about Mandela and her own mission of teaching history and peacebuilding to American students in the 2020s.