Current Events and Trends

Rondine

I had planned to write about ideas peacebuilders could draw from the business world until I spoke at (and mostly listened) a workshop organized the Rondine Cittadella del Pace. I was blown away and decided to put off dealing with the business world until next week. The staff along with a number of current and former students came to the United States and Canada to launch their Leaders for Peace. The idea is simple. Rondine is asking the 193 UN member states to redirect part of their defense spending toward training young leaders for peace, the way it has for the last twenty years.

Rondine2018-12-17T14:56:09+00:00

Circles of Trust

I learned a lesson a lot about building bridges with people we disagree with last week when Bob Jones visited, helped teach a class taught by Doug Irvin-Erickson, and then took me to meet Dave Johnson of C4ADS which used to be known as the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. What made Bob and Dave different is that they are both retired Army special forces colonels. So, when they stressed the same things I did, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Robert Putnam’s notion of bridging social capital and why it is so important at times like these. In our discussions last week, three themes rose to the surface. I hear all of them all of the time from colleagues in the peacebuilding world. What made them unusual here was the source. Bob, Dave, and others I know with military backgrounds have been saying these things for years. It’s time we started paying attention to them.

Circles of Trust2018-12-03T13:20:30+00:00

Gender and Peacebuilding

Ten days ago, I attended the Northeastern meeting of the International Studies Association to give a paper. Afterward, I stayed long enough to attend one more panel. I chose one on gender because I knew I would be writing about its role in peacebuilding in my textbook sometime in the next few weeks. It was a great choice because a number of the presentation forced me to (re)think about the role of gender in international relations in general and how we peacebuilders have (and haven’t) dealt with it. Three issues stood out, all of which will appear in expanded form in the book.

Gender and Peacebuilding2018-11-12T17:06:08+00:00

AfP’s PeaceCon 2018

The Alliance for Peacebuilding held its annual conference last week. With more than 600 attendees at an open day at the United States Institute of Peace and more than 300 at two more days for our members, it was by far the largest such event we’ve ever put on. We also learned more than we have in any other year. Some of that came in larger sessions, some of which had keynote speakers. These will appear on the AfP web site sooner rather than later.

AfP’s PeaceCon 20182018-10-29T16:11:43+00:00