What is Peace and Conflict Studies

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances — Mahatma Gandhi. Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviors as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts (including social conflicts), with a view towards…

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Pioneering peace pathways

Encouraging conflict parties to engage in dialogue is core to peace promotion. This policy brief, which accompanies Accord 29 ‘Pioneering peace pathways’ suggests three ways to initiate inclusive and sustainable peace processes. Initiating peace processes is hard to do – and not easy to document or analyse. Formative dialogue initiatives are largely informal, opaque and…

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North Korea Conflict

In early 2018, North and South Korea began a diplomatic rapprochement, and North Korean officials attended the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. On April 27, a week after announcing that North Korea would freeze weapons and missile testing, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un stepped across the border into South Korea for a summit with South…

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The Legacy of Political Humour and Satirists in the History of Iranian Journalism

Event by our partner: McGill Iranian Students Association and Ronak Association Lecturer will be by Dr. Mahmud Farjami, Assoc. Prof. Visiting Scholar Oslo Metropolitan University. In this event at McGill University, he explores political satire as a journalistic genre in Iran since the latter days of the Qajar dynasty to the contemporary era. It answers…

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Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Opposition leader Félix Tshisekedi was declared the winner of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) presidential elections held in late December 2018 and was inaugurated in January 2019. The transfer of power from former President Joseph Kabila, who ruled for eighteen years and had delayed elections multiple times, marked the first peaceful transfer of power in the…

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Main Goals and Motivations in Afghanistan’s view of Canada

Farzad Ramezani Bonesh Adjunct Researcher 2020-2021 at ACPCS Diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and Canada The Canadian government decided to establish full diplomatic relations with Afghanistan in 1968 by establishing Canada’s first embassy in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan’s internal crises severed ties after the Soviet invasion. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan and Canada…

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Belarus Peace or Conflict?

by Jeffrey Mankoff s political upheaval, a slow-burning war with Russia, and a general sense of chaos have engulfed Ukraine over the past six years, neighboring Belarus has come to seem like an oasis of stability: stagnant but calm. In recent weeks, that calm has been shattered by oil cutoffs, protests, government shuffles, snap military…

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Pluralism and Multiculturalism

Virtual Event – at the University of Ottawa 31 July, 2020 – 3-5 p.m Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, whereby their values and practices are accepted by the dominant culture, provided such are consistent with the laws and values of the wider…

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Turkey’s approach to the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis

Farzad Ramezani Bonesh Senior Researcher and Analyst of International Affairs The July 2020 confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan did not open a new situation in the history of their conflict. But Turkey’s position on this issue is plausible. From the past, Turkey has been concerned about Armenian domination to parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent areas,…

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STOCKHOLM FORUM / SIPRI TALK: Armed conflict and peace processes

Hamed Kazemzadeh had a short talk in the panel of Armed Conflict in SIPRI Debates of Stockholm Forum 2020. He mentioned that the pattern of armed conflict and peace processes in 2019 appeared to confirm the recent trend for a reversal of the post-cold war peace, but the picture is mixed. According to the UCDP,…

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Climate change and its security risk among fragile states

Hamed Kazemzadeh This is true for a number of reasons, including: the high exposure of many fragile states to climate risks; their economic reliance on climate-dependent sectors (particularly rain-fed agriculture); and their histories of conflict, poverty and weak governance, which all serve to increase vulnerability to climate change. A failure to consider and address climate change and…

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