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.
Read more about the evaluation.
Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs, Assistant Professor
2009–2011
Kristine Höglund, Associate Professor
Erik Melander, Associate Professor
Desirée Nilsson, Associate Professor
Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs, Assistant Professor
How to attain high-quality, ‘strong peace’ after civil war? Many wars end in a ‘no war, no peace’-situation. While civil war can indeed be seen as terminated when large-scale organised killing has ended, populations nevertheless often continue to suffer from poverty, sporadic violence and human rights violations. These hitherto largely unexplored aspects concerning the quality of the ensuing peace are investigated within the framework of the project entitled ’From Wars of the Weak to Strong Peace: On the Conditions for Sustainable Peace in Sub-Saharan Africa’ or the ‘Strong Peace project’, for short.
Two explanatory factors are seen as central for the quality of peace: governance and resources. The specific purposes of this project are to (1) develop the conceptualisation of ‘strong peace’ with a point of departure in the classic concepts of negative and positive peace, and to develop indicators for strong peace; and to (2) analyse how and by what mechanisms the interplay between governance and resources can account for the duration and quality of peace in weak and war-torn states.
We focus on sub-Saharan Africa—an area that has seen both more civil wars and more peace agreements than any other part of the world—combining qualitative and quantitative theory-driven empirical research in several sub-projects. We aspire to produce a conceptual article on peace, governance and resources; two monographs on war termination and peacebuilding in Africa, respectively; as well as articles in peer-reviewed journals, drawing on both qualitative comparative analysis and statistical analysis of mass data.
The Strong Peace project is carried out in cooperation with the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) in Durban, South Africa, and the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Uppsala, Sweden.
The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
The Nordic Africa Institute (NAI)
