ISDC’s Peacebuilding Research Program tackles real world questions on how to build peace, mitigate violence and avoid violent forms of conflict resolution. Our work considers all stages of the conflict cycle, focusing on what can be done to prevent war from breaking out, ensure violence is reduced during active conflicts while promoting peaceful resolutions, and ensure a long-term positive peace in the aftermath of violence. Ultimately, we consider the consequences of sustained conflict on human development.
We work across a range of scenarios and conflict types. In particular, we are interested in peace negotiations and processes; impact evaluations of pro-peace interventions; and on the role that development economics and behavioral sciences can play in delivering these outcomes and on refining the processes and interventions that are designed to deliver these outcomes. The Peacebuilding Program works across the world, with work on-going in Europe, Latin America, the MENA Region, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Central Asia.
Our team bring together robust quantitative and qualitative methods with insights drawn from behavioral sciences and development economics, as well as those from the more traditional peace and international studies literatures. We take the “practical scholar” perspective on these matters, seeking to contribute knowledge to developing positive peace in the real world, as well as contributing to broader policy and academic debates.
