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.
Libya’s Next Elections: A Step Forward or a Step Back?
Since the uprisings in Libya began in February 2011, the country has seen considerable and almost constant upheaval. International players have tried to facilitate a transition to democracy, but success has been fleeting. Now, in the midst of political division and internal conflict, Libyans are attempting to hold presidential...
Myanmar’s Armed Forces and the Rohingya Crisis
In 2016 and 2017, in response to small attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, Myanmar’s armed forces launched “area clearance operations” against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State—a response the U.S. government has called ethnic cleansing. This report explores the structure, training, and ethos of Myanmar’s armed forces...
The Political Deal with Hezb-e Islami
The deal signed with Hezb-e Islami in September 2016 was the Afghanistan government’s first major success at negotiating a peace agreement with an insurgent group. This new report examines how the deal was negotiated, what progress has been made on its implementation, and what lessons can be applied to prospective peace talks with the Taliban.
Hezb-e Islami, Peace, and Integration into the Afghan Security Forces
With an eye to an eventual end to the Afghan insurgency, this report examines the struggle within Afghanistan’s National Unity Government over the country’s security sector and the related impact on the recruitment of Hezb-e Islami commanders and fighters in the security forces as agreed to under a 2016 peace deal.
A Negotiated End to the Afghan Conflict
Despite widespread recognition that the only way toward ending the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is a negotiated settlement, understanding of the Taliban’s thinking on the subject is remarkably scant. This report attempts to fill this gap by drawing on face-to-face interviews with Taliban foot soldiers, field commanders, and supporters to better understand the movement’s views on why they are fighting, what issues are negotiable, whether they have faith in negotiation as a way to peace, and what a peace process might look like.
Déby’s Chad
Since gaining its independence from France in 1960, Chad has evolved from a one-party state into a multiparty regime, endured successive rebellions, and become an interventionist regional actor. Thanks to both an oil boom and corruption, segments of the Chadian elite have become very rich, but most of the population is...
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—which connects China’s western province of Xinjiang to the Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coastline in Balochistan province—is the first large-scale attempt to bolster economic ties between Beijing and Islamabad, after decades of...
Systems Thinking for Peacebuilding and Rule of Law
Many peacebuilding interventions seeking to support rule of law get stuck. The reason they get stuck may have little to do with the law and its technical dimensions and more with a tendency to treat certain rule of law systems as if they were...
Nonformal Dialogues in National Peacemaking
Nonformal dialogues offer complementary approaches to formal dialogues in national peacemaking efforts in contexts of conflict. As exemplified by the nonformal dialogues in Myanmar, Lebanon, and Nepal examined in this report, nonformal dialogues are able to...
Does Reconciliation Prevent Future Atrocities?
What are atrocity crimes, why and when do they arise, and how can peacebuilding practice help to prevent them? This report delves into the conceptual foundations of reconciliation and atrocity prevention in the context of Sri Lanka’s history of conflict and ongoing reconciliation process, analyzing institutional-level reconciliation efforts and drawing from a randomized field experiment in an interpersonal reconciliation program. It suggests that by understanding the conditions under which reconciliation is most effective, peacebuilding practice will be better placed to achieve its goals after violent conflict.