Do Security Sector Reforms Help Peacebuilding?

To overcome war and violent conflict, building and strengthening institutions for peace is crucial. This includes ones helping to support power-sharing in government, security sector reform, and other key processes. We investigate all these phenomena in our research, while paying equal attention to institutions and processes that may be an impediment to peace too.

The Peace and Security Research Programme analyses how identities and ideologies, institutional arrangements, and international interventions affect peace and conflict dynamics in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and investigates international violence and security trends.

In Latin America, most violence is considered “criminal.” But a clear-cut distinction between political and criminal violence does not exist. Policies to reduce violence meander between repression and dialogue but lack comprehensiveness, and a focus on prevention, the rule of law, and human rights.

Dealing with NSAAs is complicated and complex shifting between repression and dialogue. NSAAs are highly flexibkle and able to adapt to changing local and global contexts. Policies must be comprehensive and include local communities as well as structural drivers of violence.

With the takeover of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the possibilities and limits of international peace operations are being newly discussed. Experiences from Central America and Colombia show that not only the return of the past but also the lack of structural reforms threaten peace. An analysis.

COVID-19 paved the way for a left-wing government winning in Colombia’s recent elections. The pandemic has deepened structural inequalities, promoting an unprecedented wave of protest against the right-wing incumbent. Answering with high levels of violence only further increased the call for change.

In the face of the failed Bundeswehr engagement in Afghanistan, peace missions are in need of re-evaluation. Experts from the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg and from the GIGA discussed the future of German deployments abroad.

The authors of Mobilizing Force draw on case studies from around the world to systematically examine critical questions of the use of military force by democratic goverments, exploring the interrelationships among security threats, the militarization of security policy, and democratic accountability.

To overcome war and violent conflict, building and strengthening institutions for peace is crucial. This includes ones helping to support power-sharing in government, security sector reform, and other key processes. We investigate all these phenomena in our research, while paying equal attention to institutions and processes that may be an impediment to peace too.

The Peace and Security Research Programme analyses how identities and ideologies, institutional arrangements, and international interventions affect peace and conflict dynamics in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and investigates international violence and security trends.