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.
Question And Answer
Blinken’s China Trip Shows Both Sides Want to Stabilize Ties
The Constitutional Process in Ukraine
The Ukrainian government should promote an inclusive, participatory and transparent constitutional process. Such a process could help de-escalate the current conflict and build confidence in the central government and its willingness to integrate all constituencies into Ukraine’s political system.
Sharia and Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
Women’s rights in Afghanistan have been supported and championed by Afghan and international advocates and organizations since 2002. Substantial progress has been made, but the women’s rights movement faces an uncertain future in the wake of the 2014 international troop withdrawals.
Revisiting Chicago
The May 27 White House announcement on troop withdrawals from Afghanistan raises serious questions about the staying power of international security funding to support the size of the future Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), as agreed two years ago in Chicago. Concerns also exist about Afghanistan fulfilling its own commitment to fund its security forces. With the ANSF largely a U.S. creation, it would be irresponsible now to turn around and undermine it.
Why Do Youth Join Boko Haram?
Boko Haram’s recent kidnapping of over two hundred schoolgirls in Nigeria has once again brought the group into the international spotlight, making more urgent the questions about how to curtail its activities and the activities of other armed groups that threaten the security of Nigeria and the region. Drawing on the results of a 2013 study in six northern Nigerian states, this report addresses the question of how youth are radicalized and recruited into armed groups and what the Nigerian go...
Former U.N. Peacekeepers
Former U.N. peacekeepers are an emerging cadre within Pakistan’s police who are precursors of professionalization and other positive changes in police culture. They are torchbearers of human rights protection in policing and form a resilient force when it comes to fighting the tide of militancy and terrorism in Pakistan.
Engaging Afghan Religious Leaders for Women’s Rights
Women’s rights programs in Afghanistan need to work with religious leaders who have moral authority among large segments of the Afghan public. Engaging those traditional leaders who have a track record of supporting women’s rights begins with respecting their opinions and showing the patience to build trust through dialogue. It also requires supporting processes of change that are identified locally and ensuring that local partners take the lead role in the delivery of support as much as poss...
Women's Access to Justice in Afghanistan
Since the fall of the Taliban in 2002, gains in women’s rights and access to justice in Afghanistan have been remarkable, yet women’s rights remain extremely limited. How do women in Afghanistan seek justice when their rights are violated? What barriers do they face in pursuing justice or receiving a fair outcome? This report draws on interviews and focus group discussions held in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012 to determine answers to these and related questions and to recommend ways forward. ...
Maximizing the Impact of Aid to Pakistan: Leverage Reform and Local Capacity
Overcoming Pakistan's many challenges, and meeting the development needs of its people, requires working through the institutions of Pakistani governance if sustainable impacts are to be achieved. U.S. aid, if offered consistently and in support of systemic institutional reform, can have a valuable catalytic role to assist and incentivize these efforts.
Rethinking Afghan Local Governance Aid After Transition
Thirteen years into the current international campaign in Afghanistan and five years after the U.S.-led military surge of 2009, the drawdown of foreign troops and civilian-military installations is under way. The military struggle and contest for governance between the insurgency and the Kabul government has not been decisively resolved. How aid is delivered to the country’s more remote areas is changing dramatically. It is time for donors to rethink their approaches to local governance and d...
Civil Defense Groups
More than three hundred defense groups provide security to local communities in states around the world. While it is true that such groups can be a resource-efficient means for states to provide law and order to their communities, it is also true that they can worsen security.