War Prevention Initiative

07/15/2024

The War Prevention Initiative condemns political violence, read our full statement.

For immediate release July 14, 2024 PORTLAND, OR - The War Prevention Initiative strongly condemns political violence. The assassination attempt that killed one spectator and critical injuries to others at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, is unacceptable. Violence does not solve political disp...

07/02/2024

The War Prevention Initiative is seeking submissions for an essay “un-contest” on peaceful elections. International submissions are accepted and encouraged.

We want to challenge ourselves and potential contributors to ask: How can we ensure that elections are peaceful—that individuals feel safe expressing themselves politically, free from violence and threats of violence?

With half of the global population living in countries with national elections this year—among them, the U.S. presidential election in November 2024—we are concerned about the potential for violence before, during, and after these elections. In the U.S., severe political polarization means that trust in one another and political institutions is fraying—trust necessary for democracy to function well. People from across the political spectrum fear limits to political expression—another necessary component of a thriving democracy.

We accept written, photo, and video essays in English. The ideal due date for submission is August 28, 2024. Selected entries will be published on the Peace Science Digest prior to the U.S. Presidential elections in November 2024. We offer $300 compensation for selected entries. See link for essay questions and criteria, how to submit, and more: https://lnkd.in/gsctvXEz

This un-contest is endorsed by Nonviolent Peaceforce








Inkstick Rotary International MoveOn

09/01/2023

Building Peace through Sport in Northern Ireland and Korea

David Mitchell, Dan Gudgeon, and D**g Jin Kim are interested in how sport can be harnessed as a tool of peacebuilding. Sport can be a powerful tool for peacebuilding, but it is important to use it strategically and effectively.

Find out more by checking out our full analysis via the link in our bio.

Graphic one has an aerial illustration of a soccer field. Below it reads: New Analysis. Building Peace through Sport in Northern Ireland and Korea".

Graphic two reads: "David Mitchell, Dan Gudgeon, and D**g Jin Kim are interested in how sport can be harnessed as a tool of peacebuilding. Sport can be a powerful tool for peacebuilding, but it is important to use it strategically and effectively."

Graphic three reads: "Sport has distinct advantages as a tool of peacebuilding: “it has popular, often emotional, appeal and commands mass attention”; it has the capacity to “bridge the gap between elite level agreements and the experience of ordinary people,” enabling them to participate in the peace process."

Graphic four reads: "Informing practice: Sport can be used strategically to encourage a shift to more inclusive identities—while still providing space for the expression of more particularist identities—thereby supporting a country’s broader peacebuilding process and, due to its wide appeal, enabling large swaths of the population to find their place in this process as agents—rather than detractors—of peace."

Graphic 5 includes the citation for the original research, the URL link to the full analysis, and recommends organizations to check out: which are: Peace Players Northern Ireland: https://peaceplayers.org/northern-ireland/; International Olympic Committee: https://olympics.com/ioc/overview

08/15/2023

Read a selected essay from the feminist foreign policy ‘Un’-Contest:

‘Right to Choice and the Hijab: Call for International Legal Reform’ by Raghavi Purimetla & Amukta Sistla

Link to read their essay is available under the ‘FFP Essays’ tab via link in our bio.

A big shoutout and thank you to our sponsors—

07/27/2023

Read a selected essay from the Feminist Foreign Policy ‘Un’-Contest:

‘Shiny Feminism’ by Margherita Sofia Zambelli

Link to read Margherita’s essay is available under the ‘FFP Essays’ tab via link in our bio.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

A big shoutout and thank you to our sponsors—

06/08/2023

Read a selected essay from the Feminist Foreign Policy ‘Un-Contest’:

‘From the Cuban Missile Crisis to Russia’s War in Ukraine: Strategic Empathy as Feminist Foreign Policy’ by Samara Shaz

Link to read Samara’s essay available under ‘FFP Essays’ tab via link in our bio.

To connect with the author:
Instagram:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/samara-shaz

A big shoutout and thank you to our sponsors—

05/17/2023

Read a selected essay from the Feminist Foreign Policy 'Un-Contest':
'The Feminist Revolution: An Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Militarist Case for Rethinking Foreign Policy' by Irina Militaru

Link to essay: https://warpreventioninitiative.org/.../the-feminist.../

To connect with the author,
LinkedIn URL:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/irina-militaru1

A big shoutout and thank you to our sponsors to have made this “un-contest” possible—

05/04/2023

Read a selected essay from the Feminist Foreign Policy Un-Contest:

The Cases for a Feminist Domestic Policy for Mexico

To connect with the author:
Instagram:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rociomagalimaciel/

A big shoutout and thank you to our sponsors—

04/04/2023

03/31/2023

🗣 New Analyses featured in the Digest — find out more via the links below:

🔸War Results in Adverse Health Outcomes for Children
https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/war-results-in-adverse-health-outcomes-for-children/

🔸How Social Networks Facilitate Protest Against and Amid Criminal Violence
https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/how-social-networks-facilitate-protest-against-and-amid-criminal-violence/

🔸Building Peace in Cyberspace
https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/building-peace-in-cyberspace/

By examining cybersecurity through the lens of peace and conflict studies, we can shift the discourse on cyberwar to a focus on cyberpeace.

01/31/2023

🗣 New research featured in the Digest: How Women’s Situation Rooms Harness Gender to Prevent Political Violence

📍 In various West African countries, women’s situation rooms (WSRs) monitor election-related violence, mobilize diverse constituencies against violence, and mediate conflicts that arise, enabling them to respond to emerging crises and violence.
📍 WSRs engage most prominently in “operational” or “light” conflict prevention, but they also engage in “structural” or “deep” conflict prevention through the sustained cultivation of women’s political participation and capacity-building year-round.
📍 WSRs harness gender as a productive force for conflict prevention in three ways: by capitalizing on “women’s movement networks,” “the actual and perceived location of women outside formal politics,” and “the rhetorical power of African motherhood to disrupt conflict dynamics.”
📍 Gender should be understood as a “resource for activists interested in conflict prevention and conflict disruption.”

Read more by clicking the link below ⬇️
https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/how-womens-situation-rooms-harness-gender-to-prevent-political-violence/

In various West African countries, women’s situation rooms (WSRs) monitor election-related violence and more, which enables them to respond to emerging crises.

01/31/2023

🗣 New research featured in the Digest: Police Fragmentation Increases Risk of Conflict Recurrence and Human Rights Abuses in Post-Conflict Countries

📍 Police fragmentation, measured by the number of autonomous police forces in a country, results in a higher risk of conflict recurrence in post-conflict countries.

📍 Police fragmentation is also “consistently associated with worse human rights outcomes and more government violence against civilians.”

📍 Political leaders in post-conflict countries may fragment policing institutions to minimize the threat of government overthrow, resulting in poor coordination and information sharing among different police forces.

📍 The lack of coordination and state oversight creates the opportunity for police to abuse “the coercive power of the state for their own ends,” leading to “greater discretion in the use of violence…against the civilian population.”

Read more by clicking the link below ⬇️

https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/police-fragmentation-increases-risk-of-conflict-recurrence-and-human-rights-abuses-in-post-conflict-countries/

Police fragmentation results in a higher risk of conflict recurrence and “greater discretion in the use of violence…against the civilian population” in post-conflict countries.

09/23/2022

What Do & Mean to You?

Learn how civilians around the world are answering this question to prevent violence in their communities in this conversation with

as we launch our next special issue

Register ➡️ https://bit.ly/3LEFEsz

06/29/2022

🗣 New research featured in the Digest: The Entanglement of Militarism and Humanitarianism Broadens the Geographies of Violence

📍Militarism and humanitarianism, in particular Western humanitarianism, produce and justify political violence in different sites and at different scales that go beyond established conflict zones or battlefields.

📍 “Humanitarian initiatives frequently coexist with, and sometimes buttress, traditional military force,” and thereby broaden the geographies of war by extending into “local and domestic spaces that are typically beyond military reach in conflict.”

📍Militarism and humanitarianism act in tandem in areas such as “war and peace; reconstruction and development; inclusion and exclusion; [and] injury and protection”

Key insight for informing practice?

📍The reimagination of peacebuilding and humanitarianism must entail dismantling the racism-militarism paradigm, otherwise these efforts will not only fall short of their long-term transformative objectives but actively sustain a destructive system. The path forward is a decolonized, feminist, anti-racist peace agenda.

Read more by clicking the link below ⬇️

https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/the-entanglement-of-militarism-and-humanitarianism-broadens-the-geographies-of-violence%ef%bf%bc/

Militarism and humanitarianism produce and justify political violence that go beyond established conflict zones or battlefields.

06/15/2022

New research featured in the Peace Science Digest: Reimagining Peace as a Rejection of a Militarized Status Quo

📍 The meaning of peace is often framed by war and militarism, highlighted by stories that define peace as evolutionary progress or stories that focus on militarized peace.

📍 The UN Charter and international laws of war ground their conception of peace in a militarist framework, rather than working towards war elimination.

📍 Feminist and q***r perspectives on peace challenge binary ways of thinking about peace, thereby contributing to a reimagination of what peace means.

📍 Stories from grassroots, non-aligned peace movements from around the world help to imagine peace outside the frames of war through a rejection of a militarized status quo.

Key insight for informing practice?

📍As long as peace is framed by war and militarism, peace and anti-war activists will always be in a defensive, reactive position in debates on how to respond to mass violence.

https://peacesciencedigest.org/reimaging-peace-as-a-rejection-of-a-militarized-status-quo

Feminist and q***r perspectives on peace challenge binary ways of thinking about peace, contributing to a reimagination of what peace means.

05/18/2022

🚨 New research: The Problem with Inclusion in Peacemaking Theory and Practice

📍 Three main rationales exist for inclusion in peacemaking: to build legitimacy for the peace process, to protect or empower specific groups, and to transform relationships between groups.

📍 Guidance on inclusion to build legitimacy for the peace process tends to “brush over difference(s)” between parties in the peace process, failing to clarify precisely who needs to be included to achieve an end to armed conflict.

📍 Guidance on inclusion to protect and empower specific groups, commonly focused on women, while “necessary to combat [their] longstanding exclusion…from peacemaking,” is difficult to operationalize as it risks essentializing those very groups.

📍 To bring about “context-sensitive and transformative inclusion practices,” a relational approach bases decisions about inclusion on antagonistic relationships between actors in the peace process and is better equipped to address underlying social and political conditions that fuel conflict.

Key Insight for Informing Practice?

📍 While backlash to inclusive peace processes can be overcome, the failed referendum of the 2016 Colombian peace agreement imparts important lessons for how to operationalize inclusivity in a culturally sensitive, context-specific way.



https://warpreventioninitiative.org/peace-science-digest/%EF%BF%BCthe-problem-with-inclusion-in-peacemaking-theory-and-practice/

A relational approach to peacemaking is better equipped to address underlying social and political conditions that fuel conflict.

05/10/2022

🚨 New research: Awareness of the Specific Harm Caused by Nuclear Weapons Reduces Americans' Support for Their Use

For a representative sample of the American public:

📍 Vivid information about the consequences of a nuclear attack reduced Americans’ support for the use of nuclear weapons on both moral and self-interested grounds.

📍 The explicit risk of nuclear retaliation decreased the likelihood of support for a nuclear strike.

📍 Respondents were more likely to support a nuclear attack if it was the president’s decision instead of their own.

📍 The “nuclear taboo” is fragile because, without vivid information about the consequences of a nuclear attack, “substantial numbers—sometimes, a majority—of Americans appear willing to conduct such an attack.”

Key insight for informing practice?

📍 In order to change Americans’ attitudes on nuclear weapons, organizations working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons can employ vivid and specific descriptions about the consequences of a nuclear attack.


https://peacesciencedigest.org/awareness-of-the-specific-harm-caused-by-nuclear-weapons-reduces-americans-support-for-their-use/

Vivid information about the consequences of a nuclear attack reduced Americans’ support for the use of nuclear weapons.

04/18/2022

Thank you for reading the Peace Science Digest! We invite you to complete the reader survey ➡️ https://forms.gle/tamVDewAvmYEv4sQ7

We intend to use this information to inform the work of the Digest in the future. Your feedback is critical to our success.

The following survey asks for (1) your experience reading the Digest, (2) your preferences for reading news and analysis, and (3) your basic demographic information.

This survey will close on May 1, 2022.

Your answers are confidential. Please report any issues or concerns with this survey to Kelsey at [email protected].

Thank you for reading the Peace Science Digest! We invite you to complete the reader survey. We intend to use this information to inform the work of the Digest in the future. Your feedback is critical to our success. The following survey asks for (1) your experience reading the Digest, (2) your pref...

04/11/2022

🚨 New research 🚨 Racism as a Foundation of the Modern World

➡️ Race and racism, empire, and slavery are foundations of the European- and American-led contemporary world order, as demonstrated by the transatlantic slave trade, racist views held by Western philosophers, and the “standard of civilization” principle.

➡️ World order is created by great powers “on the basis of their own self-image, the values they regard as universal, and their own interest and influence,” meaning today’s is characterized by “the primacy of the West,” capitalism, state sovereignty and nation-states, an embrace of imperialism, and race and racism.

➡️ In the aftermath of WWII, the creation of the United Nations was a key feature of world order-making; yet foundational documents of the UN reflected the values of the Euro-American world order and systematically ignored Western imperialism and colonialism as a human rights violation.

➡️ Exposing the link between the Euro-American world order and racism and empire has been a key contribution of anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles, but this insight has yet to be fully incorporated into the teaching and practice of international affairs.

Key Insight for Informing Practice

➡️ Identifying historical and contemporary examples of racism in war prevention and humanitarian response presents an immense opportunity for the peacebuilding community to critically examine their approaches and then work towards more transformational, structural change.



https://peacesciencedigest.org/racism-as-a-foundation-of-the-modern-world/

Racism, empire, and slavery are foundations of the European- and American-led contemporary world order, as demonstrated by the transatlantic slave trade, racist views held by Western philosophers, and the “standard of civilization” principle.

03/29/2022

❗️New research❗️ Protecting Civilians or Protecting the State? The Role of the Pan-African Parliament in Conflict Resolution

In the case of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP):

📌 The PAP played an impactful role in conflict resolution in Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, and Somalia through its internal debates, fact-finding missions, convening of various stakeholders, meetings with diplomatic representations, and periodic communications.

📍 The PAP adjusted its approach as circumstances changed on the ground, demonstrating the utility of flexibility and the existence of multiple avenues of influence for third-party actors engaged in conflict resolution.

📌 The PAP navigates its role in conflict resolution by emphasizing civilian protection or the sovereignty of African countries, the latter often in response to U.S. or European intervention in African countries.

Key Insight for Informing Practice?

📌 As international organizations formulate their response to violent conflict, they should avoid reproducing colonial dynamics by considering existing power imbalances and not ignoring or marginalizing regional parliamentary organizations.

https://peacesciencedigest.org/protecting-civilians-or-protecting-the-state-the-role-of-the-pan-african-parliament-in-conflict-resolution/

The PAP played an impactful role in conflict resolution through its internal debates, fact-finding missions, and convening of various stakeholders.

03/14/2022

🗣New research:

In the context of the 112th U.S. House of Representatives:

❗️Legislators’ party affiliation and the demographics of their districts account for differences in the legislative vote on military spending.
❗️Democrats were more likely than their Republican colleagues to oppose military spending.
❗️Districts with a higher percentage of veterans and a lower rate of unemployment were more likely to support military spending, whereas districts with higher education rates were more likely to support military spending cuts.

Key insight for informing practice?

❗️Focusing on domestic politics and its influence on military spending reveals pathways for countering seemingly limitless increases in the defense budget—whether by questioning the necessity of current levels of spending to addressing external security threats or by highlighting the negative effects of military spending.
https://peacesciencedigest.org/why-do-u-s-congress-members-vote-for-military-spending%ef%bf%bc

Legislators’ party affiliation and the demographics of their districts account for differences in the legislative vote on military spending.

02/28/2022

🗣 New research: Militarization of UN Peacekeeping in Mali

In the context of the UN peacekeeping operation in Mali (MINUSMA):

❗️The militarization of MINUSMA was reinforced by a robust peacekeeping mandate, cooperation with counterterrorism operations, and significant involvement of NATO countries.

❗️Civilian peacekeepers alternately rejected or relied upon militarization depending on whether or not it facilitated their ability to accomplish their tasks effectively.

❗️Even in a highly insecure environment and military context, military peacekeepers’ appreciation for civilian approaches to peacekeeping demonstrated resistance to militarization.

❗️The emphasis on military technologies and strategies reproduced pre-existing power imbalances between the peacekeepers from the Global North and those from the Global South.

Key Insight for Informing Practice?

❗️In a highly insecure environment characterized by violent extremism, stakeholders should consider prioritizing civilian, political goals for military peacekeepers as a way to resist militarization of the mission and address root causes of violent extremism.

Read more by clicking the link below ⬇️
https://peacesciencedigest.org/militarization-of-un-peacekeeping-in-mali%ef%bf%bc/

The militarization of MINUSMA was reinforced by robust peacekeeping, cooperation with counterterrorism operations, and involvement of NATO.

02/23/2022

🗣 New research: Private Military and Security Companies Undermine Peacebuilding Efforts

Based on an examination of research on private military and security contractors in the context of UN peacebuilding missions:

☑️ The presence of private military and security companies promotes militarization in humanitarian spaces and undermines non-militarized approaches to security.

☑️ Private military and security companies’ commercial self-interest in selling their services leads to an inflation of threats, which militarizes humanitarian spaces.

☑️ Based on the creation of physical and psychological barriers between local communities and those who came to aid them, private military and security companies contribute to the “bunkerization” of aid, which tends to create a greater sense of insecurity for local communities.

☑️ By not considering local knowledge on security matters, private military and security companies prevent interveners from understanding the root causes of violence in their respective areas of intervention.

Key Insight for Informing Practice?

☑️ Militarization of security undermines peacebuilding effectiveness. The peacebuilding community can build on principles of local agency and unarmed civilian protection to challenge the largely uncontested security discourse.

https://peacesciencedigest.org/private-military-and-security-companies-undermine-peacebuilding-efforts/

Private military and security companies promotes militarization in humanitarian spaces and undermines non-militarized approaches to security.

02/14/2022

🗣 New research featured in the Peace Science Digest: Threatened or Actual Harm Can Provoke an Adversary Rather Than Coerce Them

📍Instead of coercing or deterring them, the threat or use of military violence (or other harm) can actually make the adversary even more adamant about not backing down, provoking them to resist further or even retaliate.

📍Concerns for reputation and honor can help explain why a target country’s resolve is often strengthened, rather than weakened, by threats or attacks.

📍An act is more likely to provoke when the target country perceives that their honor is being challenged, so while a particularly “aggressive,” “disrespectful,” “public,” or “intentional” act may be most likely to provoke, even a minor or unintentional act still can, since it is a matter of perception.

📍Political leaders can best manage and minimize provocation by communicating with their adversaries in a way that lessens an act’s provocativeness—for instance, by explaining or apologizing for threatened or actual harm and helping the target “save face” after being subjected to such an incident.

Key insight for informing practice?

📍The insight that threatened or actual military violence can provoke adversaries just as well as it can coerce them reveals a core weakness of military approaches to security and prods us to reinvest resources currently tied up in the military in programs and policies that actually contribute to lived security. De-escalation of current crises—like the one on the Ukrainian border—requires attention to the reputation and honor concerns of our adversaries.


https://peacesciencedigest.org/threatened-or-actual-harm-can-provoke-an-adversary-rather-than-coerce-them%ef%bf%bc/

The threat or use of military violence can actually make the adversary even more adamant about not backing down, provoking them to retaliate.

01/25/2022

🗣New research in the Peace Science Digest: Militarized Masculinities and the Legitimation of Violence

In the context of Canada’s military participation in the War in Afghanistan:

📍Despite the popularity of the “Canada-as-peacekeeper” image with the Canadian public, Canada’s military long had problems with it, feeling that it “emasculated” Canadian soldiers and therefore the country itself.

📍In the 2000s, political and military leaders were motivated to find a way to prove Canada’s warrior credentials—and therefore be taken “seriously”—on the international stage, while also addressing the concerns of a “combat-averse public” who preferred Canada’s peacekeeper role; the “helpful hero” image of soldiers, drawing on both warrior and peacekeeper ideals, helped “smooth over” these tensions.

📍The “helpful hero” image of Canadian soldiers depicts them engaged in helpful activities while appearing capable of, but never actually engaging in, lethal force.

📍The function served by the “helpful hero” image of Canadian soldiers was to obscure the actual military violence of their presence in Afghanistan and thereby legitimize their involvement in the war.

Key insight for informing practice?

📍We need to raise questions in real time about how gender stereotypes are being deployed to escalate conflict and legitimize violence in order to counter militarism and the mobilization to war—and move towards more inclusive understandings of security.

Read more by clicking the link below ⬇
https://peacesciencedigest.org/militarized-masculinities-and-the-legitimation-of-violence/

Despite the popularity of the “Canada-as-peacekeeper” image with the Canadian public, Canada’s military long had problems with it.

11/24/2021

This post appears in the Special Issue on Countering Hate and Violent Extremism of the Peace Science Digest in collaboration with Thought Partnerships.

Protection Approaches wants to change the way the world thinks about identity-based violence and how we respond to and prevent it

Read more by clicking the link below ⬇


https://peacesciencedigest.org/changing-how-we-understand-and-prevent-identity-based-violence-the-work-of-protection-approaches/

Protection Approaches wants to change the way the world thinks about identity-based violence and how we respond to and prevent it.

11/23/2021

This post appears in the Special Issue on Countering Hate and Violent Extremism of the Peace Science Digest in collaboration with Thought Partnerships.

Innovation in peacebuilding has left brain and behavioral science largely unexplored. Beyond Conflict seeks to change that.

Read more by clicking the link below ⬇


https://peacesciencedigest.org/brain-and-behavioral-science-informed-peacebuilding-the-work-of-beyond-conflict/

Innovation in peacebuilding has left brain and behavioral science largely unexplored. Beyond Conflict seeks to change that.