Blog Posts
Posted by Katrine Fangen on Thursday, 15 July 2021
The battle against fascism is never over; it must be fought anew by each generation and we must never forget what this ideology stands for. Theodor W. Adorno’s book is a wake-up call, because of its unfortunately continued relevance, writes Katrine Fangen. Liberal democracies are fragile and fascist tendencies will ... Read more »
NATO is facing ‘a brutal dilemma, NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said to the press ahead of NATO meeting of defense ministers on 17-18 February. The goal, said Stoltenberg, is that Afghanistan shall never again become a haven for terrorists attacking NATO and its allies. He continued: ‘While no ally ... Read more »
Posted by Ida Rudolfsen on Wednesday, 20 December 2017
Why do non-state groups engage in violent conflict with each other? Non-state conflict has been widespread in several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, including D.R. Congo, Sudan, Somalia and Burundi. This type of fighting includes both formally and informally organised groups who fight each other without engaging the state, such as ... Read more »
Posted by Jessica Stanton, Ragnhild Nordås & Dara Kay Cohen on Thursday, 7 January 2016
Refugees are fleeing Syria in such astonishing numbers because armed groups continue to target civilians with violence. That’s what we heard in September when the U.N. Human Rights Council discussed the most recent report of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria. The commission’s chair, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, made a plea ... Read more »
Posted by Nic Marsh on Monday, 7 December 2015
The guns were bought in a shop. How did the 13 November Paris Killers get their Guns? How did the Paris Killers Acquire their Guns? Read more »
Posted by John Mueller on Wednesday, 25 November 2015
For more than a decade, alarmists have essentially argued that, because the 9/11 attackers proved to be good with box-cutters, they would soon be able to fabricate nuclear weapons. And now, after the dramatic and horrible Paris terror attacks, a similar process of alarmed exaggeration seems to be happening with ... Read more »
Posted by Erica Chenoweth on Monday, 20 July 2015
Two weeks ago, the Monkey Cage ran a piece by Matthew Baum and Phil Potter suggesting that the policy of “democracy-promotion” has gone out of style.[1] I think they’re right that in many circles democracy-promotion is politically passé and that, more broadly, democracy advocates are really having a tough couple ... Read more »
Posted by Erica Chenoweth on Monday, 29 June 2015
In his article in the May 2015 issue of APSR, Evgeny Finkel makes a splash by arguing that exposure to “selective repression” (such as surveillance, beatings, arrests, and torture) helps dissidents to develop a robust skill set with which to maintain enduring resistance later on. He supports this argument with ... Read more »
Posted by Kyle Beardsley & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch on Monday, 20 April 2015
In recent months, Boko Haram has devastated a number of communities across a vast swath of Northern Nigeria, and even reaching into Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Although Boko Haram has some territorial control in the border regions near Lake Chad, its attacks do not occur in a consistent geographic area, ... Read more »
Boko Haram’s influence and cruelty is still increasing. On the 3rd of January the Islamist group first attacked Baga, situated at the riverside of Lake Chad in the north of the State of Borno. They then came back several days later and demolished the entire city and its surrounding villages. ... Read more »
Posted by Nic Marsh on Wednesday, 14 January 2015
At present we have very little information on the guns used last week by Saïd and Chérif Kouachi to commit a massacre at the offices of the publication Charlie Hebdo; and by Amedy Coulibaly in several shootings in Paris. They were armed with Kalashnikov pattern guns, however as nearly 200 ... Read more »
A new UN report blames the Taliban for a sharp rise in violence against civilians. The Taliban are an organized fighting force. They combine a relatively strong central command with a networked structure in which each of the various factions operate with considerable independence. Establishing control over certain territories has been ... Read more »
Posted by Christian Davenport on Thursday, 8 May 2014
Discussion about who killed Anna Mae Aquash of the American Indian Movement in the 1960s raises some interesting thoughts regarding what takes place when governments and challengers square off against one another. Underlying most research on the topic and popular understanding is the idea that governments and challengers represent different ... Read more »
Posted by Christian Davenport on Thursday, 17 April 2014
Fourteen years ago I began a journey to understand the political violence that took place in Rwanda during the year of 1994. Toward this end, I brought with me the skills that I had at that time: 1) an interest in media as well as government-generated data and content analysis, ... Read more »
Posted by Maral Mirshahi on Tuesday, 1 April 2014
In January 2014 PRIO researchers Gudrun Østby and Ragnhild Nordås went on a two-week fieldtrip to Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, DRC. The main purpose of the visit was to launch the new collaborative project, “Female Empowerment in Eastern DRC”, funded by the Research Council of Norway. This project ... Read more »
Posted by Christian Davenport on Friday, 31 January 2014
On January 24th Barbara Walter wrote a fascinating blog entry entitled “The Text that Changed the World”. It noted that the “Ukrainian government” had issued a text message to “thousands of protesters” effectively telling them that they had been busted (i.e., they were identified as participating in a protest event). ... Read more »