PROGRAM
Our research programs aim to be innovative and provocative, marrying commitment to rigorous, interdisciplinary research with creative questioning in order to spark new conversations about we might understand and respond to the challenges of armed conflict today. Methodologically inductive, all of our programs are founded on analysis into the questions of the nature and causes of violent conflicts and mass atrocities, and how they are ended.
Our policy engagement is integrated with our research, in two senses. First, our policy engagement provides materials for innovative research. Second, our policy engagement in turn derives from the research directions of the WPF program. Drawing on the WPF’s unique access to political leaders and institutions, the programs aim to bring the qualities of innovation and creativity to its support of political processes for peace.
Our projects are divided into three program areas:
PEACE AND GLOBAL TRENDS
Our work aims to chart global drivers of peace and conflict, revealing how emergent trends require us to reimagine policy, scholarship and activism. WPF projects examine the politics of how public health, climate change, the law, economics, and corruption intersect with the possibility for peace and threats of conflict across borders.
Carbon Compacts, Decarbonization and Peace in Fragile States in Africa and the Middle East
Political settlements in such states are ‘carbon compacts’: oil revenues are central to national economies, the functioning of political systems, and provide the discretionary funds needed by politicians to secure and retain power. Peace agreements may be structured around allocating revenue streams to those who have leverage over oil production and funds, and when oil revenues dry up, these states are plunged into turmoil. We call this ‘traumatic decarbonization.
Global Arms Trade and Corruption
Political settlements in such states are ‘carbon compacts’: oil revenues are central to national economies, the functioning of political systems, and provide the discretionary funds needed by politicians to secure and retain power. Peace agreements may be structured around allocating revenue streams to those who have leverage over oil production and funds, and when oil revenues dry up, these states are plunged into turmoil. We call this ‘traumatic decarbonization.
Political Markets and Conflict Research
Political settlements in such states are ‘carbon compacts’: oil revenues are central to national economies, the functioning of political systems, and provide the discretionary funds needed by politicians to secure and retain power. Peace agreements may be structured around allocating revenue streams to those who have leverage over oil production and funds, and when oil revenues dry up, these states are plunged into turmoil. We call this ‘traumatic decarbonization.
PROTECTING VULNERABLE GROUPS
Over the course of the twentieth century, one of the most dramatic changes to the concept of peace was the idea that it must include the experiences of civilian populations, not just interstate relations. One outcome of this shift was the development of a civilian protection paradigm, that has both made significant contributions and been sorely tested. A key challenge today is applying a critical lens to the politics and activism around protection policies, with the goal of invigorating new approaches.
Mass Atrocity Research
Mass atrocities, defined as widespread and systematic violence against civilians, are a focus of the WPF’s research agenda for two reasons. In and of themselves, atrocities are a form of war against unarmed people. And, secondarily, long after violence ends, memory of brutality can provide fuel for future conflicts. The WPF program marries principled rejection of violence against civilians with critical analysis of response mechanisms. It focuses on two key areas: how mass atrocities end and how they are memorialized.
Mass Starvation Research
Mass starvation today results from political and military leaders’ policy decisions: starvation intentionally inflicted upon entire civilian populations. The key challenge for ending mass starvation is to render such policies and the leaders who choose to deploy them morally toxic. Could international criminal law be harnessed towards this overall goal?
Tracking COVID in Detention
Places where people cannot enact social distancing are reporting significantly higher rates of Covid-19 infection than among the general public. One of the contexts where people are at elevated risk is detention. Nowhere is the problem more acute than in American prisons and jails.
AFRICAN PEACE PROGRAMS
The Africa peace program builds upon the WPF engagement with the African Union, including our 2016 report ‘African Politics, African Peace,’ and Alex de Waal’s expertise and engagement on a broad range of issues related to African peace and security. The WPF opportunistically sponsors research, programming and outputs when we can make an impact on discussions about African Peace issues.
The African Peace Missions study was initiated as a contribution to the African Union’s review of peace missions in Africa, with a view to informing the policies of the AU related to peacekeeping operations, stabilization/enforcement missions, conflict prevention, conflict mediation and political missions The ‘African Politics African Peace‘ report is the most extensive review of the African Union’s peace missions ever conducted. It charts an agenda for peace in Africa, focusing on how the African Union can implement its norms and use its instruments to prevent and resolve armed conflicts.
Study of peace in Africa has long been handicapped by the paucity of internal documentary material from peace processes themselves. This means that conflict resolution as a practice does not always learn lessons and the field is often criticized for a supposed lack of scholarly rigor. The WPF has an extensive archive of documentation of African peace processes which we are making available to researchers.