The purpose behind the competition was to produce cases of international conflict that illuminate current problems and challenges for practitioners engaged in conflict prevention and management, conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation.

The three partner universities selected 19 finalists from over 50 cases submitted and awarded each finalist a cash prize.  From the final studies, a panel of independent experts and USIP staff selected eight as USIP Teaching Cases. The USIP Teaching Cases are now posted on the USIP website and available for download. We believe these cases will be an excellent resource to support teaching, training and research in conflict prevention and management, conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation.

These eight cases focus on a conflict between countries or between parties within a specific country or region. They provide for discussion, engagement, analysis and reflection. Each case study had to focus on at least one of six areas:

• Post-conflict rebuilding
• Governance and conflict
• Conflict prevention
• Economics and conflict
• Identity-based conflict and its resolution
• Third-party roles

These cases are not meant to provide definitive analysis but to tell stories of particular situations in which countries, communities or other actors are confronting complex issues and alternative courses of action. At the core of USIP’s education and training is “active learning,” and these cases are meant to stimulate discussion and analysis, not serve as a conclusion to such conversation. These cases highlight the many ambiguities that surround conflict issues in order to leave it to discussants to try to resolve them. We hope that enough critical questions are raised that will allow for provocative and even conflicting responses by the learners.

The Eight Winning Case Studies

• Burundi
  Coordinating to build peace? Lessons from the U.N. Peacebuilding Commission’s engagement in Burundi
  Felix Haass, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
  DDR in DRC: The impact of command and control
  Joanne Richards, Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement, Geneva Institute of International and Development Studies
• Kenya
  Raiding the Future – Impacts of Violent Livestock Theft on Development and an Evaluation of Conflict Mitigation Approaches in Northwestern Kenya
  Janpeter Schilling, PhD, Department of Geography, Colgate University, and University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
  Moses Hillary Akuno, Institute for Sustainability and Peace, United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan
• Kenya
  Pyramids of Peace: Violent Participation, Uncivil Society, and Localized Peacebuilding during Kenya’s 2007-8 Post-Election Crisis
  Daniel Solomon, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC
• Peru
  Natural Resources and Recurrent Conflict: The Case of Peru and Sendero Luminoso 
  Michael Burch, University of Colorado, Boulder
• Sierra Leone
  All in the “Fambul”:  A Case Study of Local/Global Approaches to Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone
  Courtney E. Cole, PhD, Bentley University, Waltham, MA
• South Africa
  The Emergence of Racial Politics in South Africa: Lessons for Peacebuilding
  Geoffrey Macdonald, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver
  
• Sudan
  The Tale of Two Sudans: Engendered Security and Peace Processes
  Kara Ellerby, PhD, Dept. of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware