News from the Department

"Why Bad Governance Leads to Repeat Civil War", 24 May, 13.15-15.00

Barbara Walter

On 24 May, Barbara Walter, Professor of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California-San Diego, will hold a lecture on "Why Bad Governance Leads to Repeat Civil War". The Speaker Series leactures are open to the public. Most welcome!

For more information see the Speaker Series webpage.

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Dissertations 2012

Joakim Kreutz will defend his dissertation: "Dismantling the Conflict Trap: Essays on Civil War Resolution and Relapse" on 25 May, 10:15, in Sal IV, Main University building.

Margareta Sollenberg defended her dissertation: "A Scramble for Rents: Foreign Aid and Armed Conflict" on 12 May, 12:15, in Sal IV, Main University building.

The dissertation defenses are open to the public.

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Claude Ake Visiting Chair 2012

Dr. Pamela Mbabazi

Dr. Pamela Mbabazi, Associate Professor of Development Studies at Mbabara University of Science & Technology, Uganda, and currently the Deputy Vice Chancellor, has been appointed the Ake Professor 2012. For more information see the Claude Ake Visiting Chair webpage.

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New UCDP GED YouTube-video!

A short video of organized violence in 1989-2010, over time and space. A derivative of the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset (out now!)

Watch the video on YouTube.

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Nytt Kandidatprogram

Är du intresserad av frågor som rör fred och utveckling? Undrar du varför människor deltar i väpnade konflikter? Eller vilka som är de största hindren för hållbar utveckling? Eller hur utvecklingsmål och konfliktlösningsprocesser kan kombineras? Då ska du söka till kandidatprogrammet i freds och utvecklingsstudier: en ny internationellt orienterad, tvärvetenskaplig utbildning i freds- och konfliktkunskap och utvecklingsstudier.

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Lecture on Peace Research by Peter Wallensteen

The Department has recorded a lecture on the origins and developments of peace research globally and at Uppsala University with Professor Peter Wallensteen. The lecture is part of the web courses which are given at the department (see "undergraduate studies" for more information).

Watch the lecture.

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UCDP Database app

The UCDP Database app is now also available for Android and the iPhone app has been updated. The app allows for searching offline among more than 300 armed conflicts and actors, more than 200 summaries of peace agreements, data on casualties and much more. The UCDP Database app includes information on events until and including 2010 and was developed in cooperation with Uppsala University.

Download the UCDP Database app for free from the iTunes store or the Android Market.

UCDP Database App

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Electing Violence? The Causes of Electoral Violence in Africa

Associate Professor Kristine Höglund and Assistant Professor Hanne Fjelde started a new project that studies the circumstances under which electoral contestation leads to violence.

The project receives major financial support from Vetenskapsrådet (The Swedish Research Council) and will be conducted between 2011 and 2013.

See the project page for further information on the project, the people involved and other related research.

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Workshop on Ethnicity and Conflict

On 26-28 April, about thirty world leading scholars on ethnicity and conflict attended a workshop hosted by the Department of Peace and Conflict Research. The overall aim of the workshop was to discuss various issues in the collection and analysis of data relating to ethnicity and conflict. During the workshop, some of the major data collection projects in the field presented their projects and most recent extensions, including the Minorities at Risk project, the Zürich-based GROWup project, and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). Two expert panels provided insights on what we know about ethnicity and conflict and prospects for future developments. In presentations of individual research papers, a whole range of themes were covered, such as theoretical questions relating to e.g. the role of the state and religion’s relationship with ethnicity, and methodological issues, such as disaggregation of data and compatibility across datasets. A summary report will be posted on this website. Meanwhile, additional information about the workshop, including a complete list of participants and the program can be found here.

Address questions to the workshop organizer Erika Forsberg.

Steven Pinker on the decline of violence

Harvard Professor Steven Pinker gave a lecture in the Aula Magna of Uppsala University's Main Building on Thursday March 15. The topic built on his new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, and documented the decline in violence, in terms of wars, deaths in war and other types of violence, such as torture and lynchings. Part of his presentation built on information from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program.

Dr. Pinker is a Professor of Psychology and his explanations for the decline did not only include the importance of a responsive state but also normative changes in society. Two researchers, Peace Research Dr. Peter Haldén and History Dr. Karin Hassan Jansson commented on his ideas. The event was moderated by Professor Peter Wallensteen, and it was opened by Vice Rector Ulf Danielsson of Uppsala University and Carl Hvenmark Nilsson from the Uppsala Association of International Affairs.

For the presentation and the panel debate, see http://media.medfarm.uu.se/play/kanal/1/

Jan Eliasson - No 2 in the UN

Visiting Professor and Honorary Doctor Jan Eliasson has been appointed by the UN Secretary General as his Deputy, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon announced on March 2. Eliasson will deal with matters on mediation, conflict resolution as well as development issues. He takes up his new duties on July 1 and will be based in New York.

Eliasson has a long-standing relation to the Department. He has repeatedly been a Visiting Professor in the Department. His first lecture was in 1988, most recently he talked to the Master program Tuesday, February 28 on mediation, the very topic that now will be part of his UN duties.

- Jan Eliasson will be the highest official from Sweden in the UN system since Dag Hammarskjöld, says Professor Peter Wallensteen, adding that: "Eliasson is very positive to academic analysis and sees the value of research in furthering peace, development and human rights. His remarkable teaching skills will come in handy in his new job, where the ability to convince is an important asset. We look forward to learning more from him in the future on the UN and its operations."

See Eliasson's Dag Hammarskjöld lecture 2011 (external link to the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation)

Third Edition Out of Globally Used Textbook

The third edition of Peter Wallensteen’s globally used Understanding Conflict Resolution is just out. It presents the issues building on scholarship, not the least from the Uppsala Department. This edition updates the previous ones. It includes events until the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, recent UCDP data and newest research findings. It also has suggested readings.

Having used the previous edition Professor Patrick M. Regan at University of Binghamton says that “The newest edition expands coverage to conflict that are most salient to today’s students and builds on new scholarship about the role of peace agreements in securing long term peace”. Thus it “makes teaching these core ideas rather easy”.

Wallensteen says this volume uses the same structure as previous editions with a theoretical part, an analysis of three types of conflict, and sections on regional and international dimensions, where matters of mediation, sanctions and enforcement are presented.

The book is particularly useful on Master and PhD levels, but also works as encyclopedia on conflict resolution, for instance through an elaborate index.

For a recent review see Times Higher Education (THE)

Expert evaluation gives high marks to the Department’s Research

A major research evaluation undertaken by Uppsala University gives high marks to the research at the Department. The evaluation, known as Quality and Renewal 2011 (KoF11), comprised two different parts. Firstly, a peer-review process, conducted by distinguished scholars of the international research community. Secondly, a bibliometric study of publications in the period 2007–2010.

The peer-review panel rates the Department’s research overall as being of “internationally high standard.” The panel identifies several strong areas, specifically pointing to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program as being of top quality and a University “flagship” noting that “ [t]here is no comparable data set internationally in this area.”

The panel also notes that Department faculty is highly successful in publishing their research:

“A publication list of this magnitude is an achievement for a department that also has teaching responsibilities. The success may be explained by several factors: adequate funding, organizational and intellectual coherence, careful recruiting, an organizational culture of ‘competitive collegiality’… and manageable teaching loads.”

The bibliometric component of the evaluation reinforces this picture. Of all the departments at Uppsala University, Peace and Conflict Research comes out as the best cited department with the highest proportion of highly cited articles. The bibliometric study, which includes publications from 2007-2010, shows that the articles published by the Department’s faculty are 230% more cited than the world average for the field (based on the mean normalized citation score, MNCS).

Contact persons for further information on the Department:

Magnus Öberg (Head of Department)
Phone: +46 (0)18 471 27 87
Fax: +46 (0)18 69 51 02
E-mail: Magnus.Oberg@pcr.uu.se

Jan Ångström (Director of Studies)
Phone: +46 (0)18-471 23 27
Fax: +46 (0)18 69 51 02
E-mail: Jan.Angstrom@pcr.uu.se

Kristine Höglund (Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict, Director of Studies of the PhD Program)
Phone: +46 (0)18- 471 63 87
Fax: +46 (0)18-69 51 02
E-mail: phdprogramme@pcr.uu.se

More news from the Department

Why Does Thailand Break the East Asian Peace?

Professor Thomas Ohlson 1954-2012

Peter Wallensteen Receives the 2011 Rudbeck Medal

East Asian Peace Highlights

New data release: UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP GED) version 1.0-2011

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Discuss with Peace Researchers

National Confernece on Peace and Conflict Research for PhD candidates

Uppsala University named Rotary Peace Center in stiff competition

The UCDP receives Lijphart/Przeworski/Verba Data Set Award, 2011

For more news, please see News Archive

Click image for the UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia (UCDP database)

Click image for the UCDP Georeferenced Event Data

Newly published books

Recent Publications

For a complete list of publications from the Dept. of Peace and Conflict Research, please see Publications.

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Evan Hoffman & Isak Svensson (2012): "Pinning Down Peace: Towards a Multi-Dimensional, Clustered Measure of Mediation Success" The Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation (CIIAN) and The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS)

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Nilsson, Desirée. 2012. "Anchoring the Peace: Civil Society Actors in Peace Accords and Durable Peace", International Interactions 38(2): 243-266.

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Sundberg, Ralph, Kristine Eck and Joakim Kreutz, 2012, "Introducing the UCDP Non-State Conflict Dataset", Journal of Peace Research, March 2012, 49:351-362

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Hultman, Lisa. 2012. “Attacks on Civilians in Civil War: Targeting the Achilles Heel of Democratic Governments”, International Interactions 38(2): 164-181.

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Hultman, Lisa. 2012. “COIN and Collateral Deaths: Patterns of Violence in Afghanistan, 2004-2009”, Small Wars & Insurgencies 23(2): 245-263.

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Lilja, Jannie (2012) "Trust and Treason: Social Network Structure as a Source of Flexibility in Peace Negotiations" Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 5(1): 96–125.

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Wallensteen, Peter 2011. 'Academic Diplomacy: The Role of Non–Decision Makers in Peacemaking', in Susan Allen Nan, Zachariah Cherian Mampilly, and Andrea Bartoli (eds), Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory. ABC-Clio, pp 738-769 205.

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Wallensteen, Peter 2011. ‘El 11 de septiembre de 2011 y la solucion de conflictos,’ in Maria Cristina Rosas (ed), Terrorismo, democracia y seguridad: 11 de septiembre: diez anos después, México, DF: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, pp 135-142.
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Themnér, Anders (2012), "Former Mid-Level Commanders in Big Man Networks", in Mats Utas (ed.), African Conflicts and Informal Regimes of Power: Big Men and Networks. London: Zed Publishing.

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Höglund, Kristine and Camilla Orjuela (2012). "Hybrid Peace Governance and Illiberal Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka." Global Governance 18(1).

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Lilja, Jannie (2012) "Outbidding and the Decision to Negotiate" In The Slippery Slope to Genocide: Reducing Identity Conflicts and Preventing Mass Murder, eds. William Zartman et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 126-153.
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Ashok Swain, Ramses Amer & Joakim Öjendal, eds. The Democratization Project: Opportunities and Challenges (London: Anthem Press, 2011). Paperback Edition

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Ramses Amer, Ashok Swain and Joakim Öjendal, eds. The Security-Development Nexus: Peace, Conflict and Development (London: Anthem Press, 2012).

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Ashok Swain and Nhi Phan, "Diasporas' Role In Peacebuilding: The Case Of The Vietnamese- Swedish Migrant Group", Ramses Amer, Ashok Swain and Joakim Öjendal, eds. The Security-Development Nexus: Peace, Conflict and Development (London: Anthem Press, 2012).

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Roland Kostic , Florian Krampe and Ashok Swain, "Liberal State-Building And Environmental Security: The International Community Between Trade-Off And Carelessness", .Ramses Amer, Ashok Swain and Joakim Öjendal, eds. The Security-Development Nexus: Peace, Conflict and Development (London: Anthem Press, 2012).

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Ashok Swain, "Global Climate Change and Challenges for International River Agreements", International Journal on Sustainable Society, vol. 4, nos 1 &2, 2012, pp. 72-87.

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Ashok Swain, "Politics or Development: Sharing of International Rivers in the South" in Joakim Öjendal, Stina Hansson, Stina; and Sofie Hellberg, Eds., Politics and Development in a Transboundary Watershed (Springer, 2012).