DIIS´ research on peace and conflict
DIIS has a long tradition of independent and interdisciplinary research on peace, conflict and security. Our field-based research contributes with in-depth understandings of conflict constellations, security actors and peace processes in a wide range of countries and in relation to regional and global dynamics. Winning the peace is a complex effort and requires a perspective that besides research on military operations also includes a focus on politics, development, and human security. DIIS’ long-term research engagements and comparative insights on these topics provides the basis for policy recommendations to relevant Danish and international stakeholders.
Among other things, ongoing research at DIIS addresses important questions like: What are the prospects for ensuring sustainable peace in Afghanistan and Iraq? How do Western states face the challenge of ISIS fighters returning home from the Syrian battlefield? How do we treat Danish soldiers who may suffer from war traumas long after the fighting has stopped? And how do we understand the long-term environmental and human effects of warfare?
DIIS peace and conflict research particularly covers three areas:
- International and local actors that are implicated in conflicts and peace processes, and their practices. Research covers studies of peacekeeping missions, peace negotiations, stabilization efforts and military operations, including the bilateral and multilateral (UN, EU, NATO etc.) frameworks for such interventions. DIIS also specializes in understanding those non-state actors (militias, rebel groups, religious organizations etc.) that play a significant role in today’s conflicts and in various forms of security provision and dispute resolution, for instance in Syria, Myanmar, Ghana and Afghanistan.
- Tensions and continuities in the ideological and religious narratives that characterize current global conflicts. An important aspect of understanding peace and conflict dynamics is the examination of ideas, worldviews, collective emotions and norms. Current DIIS research for instance explores the ideological tensions between Russia and the EU/NATO, the dynamics behind transnational jihadism, and the global visions of the emerging right wing in Europe and the US. An important question is whether changes in the world order will lead to a replacement of the liberal conflict-resolution paradigm.
- Wider causes and side effects of war such as the human effects of violence and displacement. DIIS research contributes to understanding how violent conflicts haunt societies long after formal peace agreements have been signed, based on the idea that conflicts rarely have a clear beginning and end. Current research projects explore transitional justice, psychological aspects of war, the long-term effects of nuclear testing, and the dynamics between conflicts, migration and climate change.
- ’Domestic Security Implications of UN Peacekeeping’ (D-SIP, funded by FFU), which explores how Ghana’s long-term contribution to international peacekeeping has transformed domestic security provision, seen from a local and national perspective.
- ’Radioactive Ruins; Security in the Age of the Anthropocene’ (RADIANT, funded by DFF(FSE), which problematizes current understandings of security and survival in the age of the Anthro-pocene, based on empirical studies in former nuclear test sites (Marshall Islands, Kazakh-stan and French Polynesia).
- ’Diaspora Humanitarianism in Complex Crises’ (D-Hum) (funded by FFU) focuses on Somalia and analyses the mobilization, channeling, delivery and effects of diaspora humanitarianism.
- ’Everyday Justice and Security provision in Myanmar’ (EverJust) (funded by FFU), on local conflict dynamics and multiple authorities in ceasefire areas.
- ’World of the Right’ (funded by Velux) investigates commonalities and variations in the radical, nationalist and often populist Right currently on the rise across Europe and the US.
- ‘Horizon2020 MENARA’ on state fragmentation and security order in the Middle East.
- ‘GOVSEA’ on trade, transport and state formation in Somalia’s contested areas, analysing how the economies of conflict affect peace (funded by FFU).
- ‘Roadblock economies’ and ‘Infrastructure and Stabilization’ (funded by Sv. Riksbanken) in DR Congo and Central African Republic, analysing how infrastructure affects peace and conflict dynamics.
- ’New Psychologies of war’ (Funded by FKK), explores theoretical and ethical underpinnings of the turn to psychological resilience in warfare.
DIIS Experts
