PRIO Research Professor Håvard Hegre has been awarded a prestigious Hernes-CAS Mobility Grant to develop a new research project exploring whether the long-term global trend towards more peaceful politics is continuing or beginning to reverse.
The new project is called Future of Peaceful Politics and will explore the long-term prospects for peace and democracy. It will examine whether recent increases in conflict and democratic erosion reflect a lasting shift in global development, or a temporary setback in the long-term advance of peace and increased political inclusion.
Building on earlier research
The new project builds on the research project Stability and Change at the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS, directed by Hegre and Nils Lid Hjort, which explored long-term trends in war and peace. The team examined whether a "long peace" can be observed historically and whether major wars have become less severe over time.
The Future of Peaceful Politics project will extend this work by investigating how trends in armed conflict relate to developments in democracy, economic growth, and global inequality. The project will explore whether these processes are connected and what they may reveal about the future of international peace and security.
The selection committee highlighted both the societal relevance of the project and the opportunities the residency provides for carrying findings from completed research projects into a new research agenda.
"It is a great honor to receive this grant in stiff competition from top researchers across all academic disciplines. It is also a wonderful opportunity to sit down and get started on a new research agenda at a perfect moment just after I finish three large projects at PRIO", says Hegre.
As part of the fellowship, he will spend five months at the Paris Institute of Advanced Study (Paris-IAS) in spring 2028.
