News Archive

​Today, 3 December 2021, Ida Rudolfsen has successfully defended her doctoral thesis at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. Her thesis is titled Fighting For Food? Investigating Food Insecurity as a Source of Urban Unrest.

Congratulations to Ida!

​PRIO is proud to be a part of Oslo Peace Days, an annual celebration since 2018. The City of Oslo, the Nobel Peace Center, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the University of Oslo work with peace and human rights issues in various ways.

​A new article introduces the Repertoires of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (RSVAC) data package. 

This data source assembles reports from 1989 to 2015 of forms of sexual violence by government/states forces, insurgent/rebel organizations, and pro-government militias for each conflict and year, as well as extensive qualitative notes. The new data package helps disaggregate ‘sexual violence’ into its distinct forms and will therefore enable analysis of the reported presence of forms of sexual violence across time, conflicts, and organizations. 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00223433211044674?icid=int.sj-full-text.citing-articles.1 

The annual meeting of the Nordic Women Mediators (NWM) takes place in Reykjavik from 17 – 19 November 2021. Members from all five Nordic networks come together for a three-day meeting to discuss approaches to including and strengthening women in mediation and peacebuilding efforts. The discussions draw on lessons from the recent events in Afghanistan and from new working methods applied during the Covid-19 pandemic.

​The Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, visited PRIO this afternoon. 

​The third edition of the global Women, Peace and Security Index (WPS Index) draws on recognized data sources to measure women’s inclusion, justice, and security in 170 countries. Trends in the WPS Index show that the global advancement of women’s status has slowed and disparities have widened across countries. The WPS Index is published by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the PRIO Centre on Gender, Peace and Security, with support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov. "They are representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions," said Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

​The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are organizing a series of thematic roundtable meetings about current issues on the Security Council's agenda. The situation in Afghanistan was topic for the third of these meetings on 30 September 2021.

​This fall the PRIO GPS Centre and Gender Research Group are collaborating on a strategic initiative to build more research focusing on men and masculinities at PRIO. 

In recent years, there has been a growth of research which focuses on how gender shapes men's lives, including in peace and conflict research. Through different thematic workshops this fall, PRIO researchers and other collaborators will be meeting to identify where masculinities can fit into PRIO's research, and to develop innovative and new project proposals. 

The project kicked off with a seminar by PRIO Global Fellow Jacqui True in August, and three workshops will be taking place throughout the fall at PRIO, covering topics such as men’s engagement for Women, Peace, and Security, violent extremism and masculinity, and masculinities and militarism.

​New article in the journal Migration Studies analyses why migrants vote from abroad in elections in countries of origin, based on 80 interviews with Polish and Romanian migrants in Barcelona and Oslo. Whereas analyses of external voting patterns offer insights into the results of external voting compared to origin populations, there is a lacuna of knowledge about why migrants choose to vote, or not, when they have the right to do so. 

​Master’s thesis affiliated with PRIO and the PRIO’s Migration Centre examines the effectiveness of litigation-based approaches to reforming immigration control practices in Norway. Over the past few decades, human rights have evolved to become enforceable legal rules that place significant constrains on policymaking, creating new opportunities for organised interests to influence society, but also leading many to question their democratic legitimacy. Nowhere is this conflict more visible than within the field of migration management.

What about conflict drives some people to move, while others stay behind? Proposed session for the Annual Meeting of American Geographers 2022, on the geographies of migration during conflict and the dynamics of migration-decision making in conflict settings. 

​On 9-10 September 2021, around 20 researchers met for a hybrid online-offline workshop to share their research on specific cases of ethical issues in peace negotiations and mediation. The workshop was part of the PRIO project 'On Fair Terms: The Ethics of Peace Negotiations and Mediation' (FAIR) and included both PRIO researchers and researchers from across the world. 

​Sofie Gilbert has successfully defended her thesis titled "Correlates of Sexual Violence in Protest Spaces: Evidence from the Egyptian Revolution".

Congratulations, Sofie!

​Debate around possible offshore asylum processing by European countries has resurfaced recently, in the wake of Denmark's newly passed legislation, allowing for the relocation of asylum seekers to third countries while their applications are being processed. The European Union appears to often look to Australia as a country that has successfully managed to seal its – maritime – borders and control migration, notably through the establishment of offshore asylum processing and detention centres. The recent legislative adoption by Denmark raises concerns and expectations that other countries might follow suit.

​Malin Nærum Aadalen has successfully defended her thesis "The Effects of Different Types of Sectarian Violence on Trust in State- and Societal Institutions. Evidence from Egypt".

Congratulations, Malin!

Last January, Pope Francis appointed Greg Reichberg as consultor to the Holy See's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. 

​​Amalie Nilsen has successfully defended her thesis "Can Pre-Election Protests Influence Voter Behaviour? The Case of Hong Kong's Anti-ELAB Movement". 

Congratulations Amalie!

​The project "Red Lines and Grey Zones: Exploring the Ethics of Humanitarian Negotiation" has received funding from the Research Council of Norway. Starting from consultations with humanitarian practitioners, the project will map problems related to the ethics of negotiation and cross examine these challenges through cases from Syria, Bangladesh, Colombia, Nepal, the Mediterranean and the UN Security Council.

​The sometimes-violent antigovernment demonstrations that erupted during 2020 and 2021 were fueled in part by the spread of extremist ideologies, conspiratorial thinking, and political polarization. New research published in the journal Psychological Science also puts some of the blame for civil unrest and political violence on the psychological burden of the COVID-19 pandemic.

​We welcome abstracts for papers for a virtual workshop, to be held in October/November 2021 (date/time to be confirmed with those participating) – on the theme of Migrating from Pakistan today: Interrogating the regular/irregular divide. The workshop will be held in English, and will be closed (by invitation only).

Gudrun Østby will be the Research Director of the research department Conditions of Violence and Peace from 1 August.

Gudrun Østby is a Research Professor at PRIO. She is Deputy Editor of the Journal of Peace Research, of which she has also been Editor-in-Chief. She has been at PRIO in different capacities since 2004, with a PhD in political science from the University of Oslo (2011).

Gudrun will be succeeding Siri Aas Rustad.

Congratulations to Gudrun!

Bjørn Schirmer-Nilsen has successfully defended his thesis "Successful Failure: The Intifada and the Shultz Initiative of 1988".

Congratulations Bjørn!

Please be invited and save the dates for the INSPIRE seminar series autumn 2021! The seminars will take place monthly, on Wednesdays from 12:00-13:00 CET, online, with invited researchers and artists.

Klo Kwe Moo Kham has successfully defended his thesis "The Quest for Peace in Kawthoolei: The Strategies, Outcomes, and Sustainability of Peacebuilding in Southeast Myanmar, 2012-2020".

Congratulations Klo!

The DISARM project seeks is to identify the impact of disarmament processes on conflict recurrence and pinpoint the conditions under which disarmament can be the most effective. This is one out of five PRIO projects that today have received funding from the Research Council of Norway.

Today we got the news that five PRIO-led projects have succeeded in the most competitive calls for funding from the Research Council of Norway.

"I am immensely pleased with this outcome", says PRIO Director Henrik Urdal. "These projects address core challenges for the international society, and will provide novel knowledge to support policy decisions".

​The NORM project aims at finding out how China’s Digital Silk Road shapes the digital world order and its norms, and the agency that recipient developing countries exercise in response. This is one out of five PRIO projects that today have received funding from the Research Council of Norway.

​​The ambition of the ODAS project is to explain how online dangerous speech contributes to communal violence in India. The ultimate ambition of ODAS is to test a causal connection between dangerous online speech and violence. To do so, speech and violence data must be merged.

This is one out of five PRIO projects that today have received funding from the Research Council of Norway.

​The PRIO paper on “Sweden as an Elected Member of the UN Security Council: Promoting Women, Peace and Security as Core Council Business, 2017–18” was successfully launched at a webinar on Wednesday the 23rd of June. The webinar brought together scholars and decision-makers to discuss the findings of the report, promote dialogue, and advance our knowledge on elected United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members.

​The P3A project will advance the understanding of how, and under what conditions, private sector development exacerbates or mitigates conflict in Africa.

This is one out of five PRIO projects that today have received funding from the Research Council of Norway.

​The Legacy of Racial Violence project seeks to address gaps in our understanding of how past racial violence affects contemporary communities, using the US as a critical research case. process by which communities address those aftereffects through restorative acts.

This is one out of five PRIO projects that today have received funding from the Research Council of Norway.

​Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Søreide and Minister of International Development Dag-Inge Ulstein presented the government's new strategy for the Sahel virtually on the 23^rd of June. Jenny Lorentzen (PRIO/ Lund University), Morten Bøås (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs), Dagfinn Høybråten (Norwegian Church Aid) and Jan Egeland (Norwegian Refugee Council) commented on the strategy, followed by a short panel debate. 

​Kelly Fisher has successfully defended his thesis "Moving masculinities: Polish men's migration experiences in Oslo".

Congratulations Kelly!

​Education in situations of conflict and crisis is central in efforts to protect children and youth in the near-term and fostering peaceful coexistence over the longer-term. But how can education enable individuals and communities to build durable futures when there is great uncertainty about where these futures will be? 

​The 2020 update of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program is now available, and reveals interesting trends in armed conflict for the last year, including more conflicts but also fewer deaths.

Erlend Lunde Colleuille has successfully defended his thesis "An Impossible Balancing Act. France and the Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1982".

Congratulations, Erlend!

​In a recent episode of the PRIO Peace in a pod, Marta Bivand Erdal and Lubomiła Korzeniewska share insight from their research with nurse migrants in Norway. They also reflect on how the experience of the pandemic sheds new light on their previous analysis of deskilling in the context of nurse migration.

​Why do migrants vote? How do they compare countries of origin and residence? This new PRIO paper summarizes findings from 80 semi-structured interviews and offers insights from Polish and Romanian migrants living in Barcelona and Oslo. These interviews were conducted as part of the DIASPOlitic project “Understanding the Political Dynamics of Émigré Communities in an Era of European Democratic Backsliding”. The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway and led by the University of Oslo, in collaboration with SWPS University in Warsaw and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

​Listen to this podcast discussing a new article in Nature Communications on What predicts asylum migration flows to Europe, by Sebastian Schutte, Jonas Vestby, Jørgen Carling and Halvard Buhaug. The podcast features a converation reflecting on the idea that climate change = more asylum seekers? But can it be that simple?

​Research Director Siri Aas Rustad will take part in the UNDP Symposium "A New Generation of Human Security" later today. The event brings together high-level participants both from the policy world and academia to discuss some of the large issues related to human security.

​The PRIO Guide to Migration Journals is a new resource which gives authors and readers facts and perspectives on 29 peer-reviewed journals in migration research. Explore to find info on thematic profile, open access options, article length, citations and more, all in one place on the PRIO Migration Centre website.

​PRIO invites applications for a doctoral researcher with the POPAGANDA project. This will be a doctoral project on indigenous belief systems and cosmologies in Thai or Burmese popular culture and art.

​Round three of conflict prediction in the Conflict Cartographer project is now open. Country and area experts are invited to add their conflict predictions using the project app. The project focuses on 35 countries in Africa that have experienced conflict within the past five years.

​Is the world becoming more peaceful, or can we expect more conflict in the future? The impression we get from the media certainly is gloomy. But what does the numbers and facts tell us? This course will give an overview of conflict trends based on large conflict datasets on conflict related variables. It will provide a better understanding of the larger global trends in the world such as level and type of conflicts, the geography and demography of conflict, and protests and mobilization. In addition, we will explore the Colombian conflict through survey data. 

​"Gender Equality and Nation Branding in the Nordic Region, explores how gender equality, a central part of the Nordic imaginary, is used in the political communication of Nordic states. The analyses presented move beyond conventional images and discourses of Nordic gender- and women-friendliness by critically investigating how and to what extent gender equality serves nation-branding in the Nordic region."

​We welcome abstracts for papers to be presented at the research symposium on 'Micro-level dynamics of migrant transnationalism'. This symposium will bring together presentations of recent empirical research on migrant transnationalism, from around the world, drawing on original qualitative or quantitative data. Deadline for abstract submission - 20 June 2021. The symposium will take place 24 September in Maastricht, the Netherlands (and online if need be). Organised by the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Migrant Transnationalism.

​A milestone Pan-Arctic Report: Gender Equality in the Arctic has just been published and is available online at arcticgenderequality.network. The report was published in tandem with the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting held in Reykjavík 19. – 20. May. The report is a part of an international project under the Arctic Council Sustainable Development Group on Gender Equality in the Arctic (GEA). 

​The latest issue of the PRIO Middle East Centre Newsletter is out now. In this issue, you can read about our new series of blog posts on the unfolding Israeli-Palestinian Conflict as well as our MidEast Policy Brief on the use of biometrics in humanitarian work in Yemen.

​Ludvig Fæhn Fuglestvedt has successfully defended his thesis "Legal advocacy for the human rights of asylum seekers: A strategic analysis".

Congratulations Ludvig!

​The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) seeks partners for survey data collection and related tasks in Ghana, Cape Verde and The Gambia

​As part of the newly established Dialogue Forum for Norway's membership in the United Nations Security Council 2021-2022, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in collaboration with PRIO, and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) are organizing a series of thematic roundtable meetings about current issues on the Council's agenda. The first meeting took place on April 29^th and the topic was global health and security.

In this episode of The Conversation podcast, Dr. Zenonas Tziarras talks about Turkish foreign policy in the Eastern Mediterranean. 

What objectives does Turkey have? 

How and why is Turkish foreign policy revisionist? 

What about the conflict and the presence of non-state actors in the region? And what do Turkish actions mean for other regional players?

​In this talk for Deep Dive Politics Zenonas covers the international systemic drivers and individual state interests that led to the emergence of the new security architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean. He specifically analyzes the impact of global power shifts on the regional level, Turkish foreign policy, and the factors that led to a closer cooperation among Eastern Mediterranean states. Lastly, the talk covers the prospects and challenges of regional integration.

​PRIO invites applications for three Doctoral Researcher positions.

​PRIO invites applications for a Postdoc Position.

The Journal of Peace Research is a leading international and interdisciplinary journal in peace research, published in collaboration between the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and SAGE Publications.

Scholars with an interdisciplinary orientation are invited to apply for a position as Postdoctoral Fellow, and a for a Research Fellowship as a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Gender Research at the University of Oslo. The successful applicant will work on the European Research Council Consolidator grant project ‘Innocent Children or Security Threats? European Children Born of War (EuroWARCHILD)”. 

Since 2016, the University of Oslo (UiO) and PRIO have been engaged in a strategic partnership. As a vital part of this collaborative relationship, up to ten UiO master's students each year are offered a place in the vibrant, international and interdisciplinary research environment on peace and conflict at PRIO.​

PRIO Research Professor Gregory M. Reichberg has co-edited a new volume titled "Robotics, AI, and Humanity: Science, Ethics, and Policy".

​A lack of a sense of belonging is destructive. So perhaps it is wise to examine both structural racism and everyday racism more closely, also in Norway. Recent debates on structural racism in Norway have been more polarized than necessary, while often ignoring that lack of a sense of belonging can be experienced as both acutely alienating and gradually destructive. But do such debates contribute to fostering a better sense of belonging in Norwegian society, on an equal basis, for all children and young people who are born in Norway? 

T​oday is the UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Understanding the conditions and dynamics of discrimination, repression, marginalization, inequity, injustice, state violence, exclusion and racism is an important part of PRIO's mission to conduct research for a more peaceful world.

​Migration decision-making is shaped by myriad unobservable and intangible factors, including personality traits, emotions, beliefs and values. These have long been overshadowed by economic factors in migration research but are increasingly gaining attention. A new PRIO paper takes stock of the evidence on how these factors matter.

​Over the past few decades, thousands of people have responded to survey questions about their thoughts and feelings about possibly migrating. The resulting data can be valuable in migration research but are as good as the questions that are asked in survey. A new paper looks in depth at question formulations and creates an inventory of data.

​Sara Christophersen has won the annual prize for best MA thesis in human geography, handed out at this year's digital winter seminar.

Why do migrants want vote in country of origin elections? Do they seek to drive change? And what are the reasons why some migrants also feel they ought not to have the right to vote in their origin contexts? Through 80 semi-structured interviews with Polish and Romanian migrants in Barcelona and Oslo the DIASPOLitic team sought to find out.

In honor of International Women's Day, we're highlighting the research of Jenny Lorentzen. Jenny is a Senior Researcher at PRIO and a Post-Doc at Lund University. Her PhD work focused partly on women’s participation in Malian peace processes, so today she's talking about what women in Mali had to do to get a seat at the table, and what can be learned from their efforts, and the work of female negotiators around the world.

​Round two of conflict prediction in the Conflict Cartographer project is now open. Country and area experts are invited to add their conflict predictions using the project app. The project focuses on 35 countries in Africa that have experienced conflict within the past five years.

​As refugees and other migrants arrived in increased numbers to Europe during the summer of 2015, many citizens across Europe mobilized to provide basic assistance in different ways along the route: from food, shelter, clothes, to access to wifi and charging stations for mobile phones. Alongside the massive political and media attention to the migrants arriving, was also this phenomenon: the widespread mobilization of volunteers, many whom had never or rarely been involved in volunteer initiatives earlier. As the number of people wanting to help grew rapidly, the initiatives needed to organize and create structures to coordinate the volunteers. How did this transition from spontaneous volunteer initiatives, at a moment with high media and political attention, materialize into formalized structures, responding to needs and contexts that also changed over time?

​In a new article recently published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Bruno Oliveira Martins and Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert analyze the dynamics surrounding the adoption of technologies for EU border control. The article is part of a forthcoming special issue on The Spiralling of the Securitization of Migration in the European Union, edited by Valeria Bello and Sarah Léonard.

Leaders of armed groups often strongly advise their members to avoid pregnancies, due to the dangers that guerrilla soldiers face in the mountains and jungle areas where they operate and carry out battles. Some armed groups also give out contraceptives. However, intimate relationships between guerrilla soldiers emerge and some female soldiers become pregnant and give birth during war. The challenges they face with a new-born baby in a war zone are enormous and the options they have for how to take care of the child are quite limited. Female soldiers often carry the heaviest burden in these cases.

​Join the winter seminar in human geography session on geographical perspectives on migration and borders (Thursday 11 March 10.30-12.00 CET). The four presentations and introduction will focus less on border control, but instead offer multiple views on borders & boundary-making in relation to migration, and to geographical research thereof.

PRIO has conducted a study for Save the Children estimating the number of children at risk of experiencing wartime sexual violence. A staggering 72 million children—17% of the 426 million children living in conflict areas globally, or 1 in 6—are living near armed groups that have been reported to perpetrate sexual violence against children.

Thousands of people have responded to surveys with questions about their wishes or plans for migration and researchers have analyzed the data to identify the drivers. But until now, the results have been fragmented. In the first-ever systematic literature review four PRIO researchers map out what makes people want to migrate. 

Marta Bivand Erdal and Tore Wig have contributed to a symposium on structural racism and racialization in Tidsskrift for samfunnsforsking, Norway's leading social science journal.

EXPLORING INSPIRATION

Artists living in Norway and working on themes related to violent conflict and exile are hereby invited to take part in a unique series of online workshops in March-April 2021 to Explore Inspiration. Deadline for applications is March 1.

• What is disruptive innovation and in which ways does it impact security and defence? 
• How should the Total Defence concept be adapted to better capture the challenges of today's tech-based societies? 
• How are civil-military relations challenged by the growing importance of dual-use technologies in both security & defence and the society at large? 

​Noor Jdid has successfully defended her PhD dissertation: "Taking part in society the way I am". An exploration of active citizenship norms in Denmark and Norway at the University of Bergen.

Congratulations from all at PRIO! 

​The International Summer School (ISS) at the University of Oslo is an academic centre for learning in an international context and a forum for fostering intercultural understanding. The Peace Research course has been part of the University of Oslo International Summer School since 1969. PRIO is responsible for the academic syllabus, as well as for teaching and other practical matters.

​PRIO Directors have made it a tradition to offer their personal shortlists for the Peace Prize. Current director Henrik Urdal presents his fifth list since taking up the position of director in 2017. This year, the pandemic and equitable vaccine access, represented by COVAX, feature at the top of the list.

For 40 years from 1971 to 2011, Anne Cecilie Kjelling and the Library of the Norwegian Nobel Institute were as one. Probably every single peace, conflict, security or international relations researcher based in Oslo, or visiting the Nobel Institute during that period, will have benefitted from her kind and diligent help to identify the best possible literature or published sources for the topic they wanted to explore. She was not just interested in the books and journals as such, or in keeping them in good order, but was fascinated by our research topics. This led her to become an active participant in the Peace History section of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA).

Many a PRIOite has discussed their research projects with her and benefitted greatly from her advice. From her vantage point in the open office next to the whispering quiet she maintained in the Nobel Institute's reading room, she keenly followed PRIO's exploits through the years. She was a frequent source of help and advice for Odvar Leine, PRIO's head librarian during 2007–2017, and our current head librarian, Olga Baeva, for some years worked part time under Anne Kjelling's direction at the Nobel Institute. Anne Kjelling served as book review editor for PRIO's journal Security Dialogue from 1995–2005. Until recently, we saw her coming regularly to our seminars. And after she retired from the Nobel Institute, she took up a position at the Oslo Jewish Museum, in the immediate vicinity of PRIO.

​How do political opposition groups in Myanmar and Thailand use popular culture and art to generate legitimacy for their political causes and propagate their messages?