PRIO's Peace in a Pod

Sexual assault allegations and the arrest of Senegal's most prominent opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, have led to weeks of protests in the country. At least eight people have died. Mobilization is especially strong among young people, who are captivated by Sonko's critique of the political system and call for transparency in the management of resources. PRIO's Bintu Zahara Sakor and Aji Cee...

When we imagine artificial intelligence (AI) in warfare, we might think of films like Blade Runner and its replicants, or Terminator’s Skynet. But in reality, some artificial intelligence usage is already occurring, and contrary to the films, we should be more concerned about the humans involved. The "Warring with Machines” project at PRIO focuses on the people who serve in combat settings with AI...

In honor of International Women's Day, we're highlighting the research of Jenny Lorentzen. Jenny is a Senior Researcher at PRIO and a Post-Doc at Lund University. Her PhD work focused partly on women’s participation in Malian peace processes, so today she's talking about what women in Mali had to do to get a seat at the table, and what can be learned from their efforts, and the work of female nego...

Conflict prediction has traditionally involved statistical models and large amounts of data to yield information about where violence will take place. There are challenges with that approach though, and PRIO researchers want to improve conflict forecasting. They're trying a new approach with Conflict Cartographer. Find out more about Conflict Cartographer here:  https://www.prio.org/Proj...

In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests around the world, many institutions looked inward at what they could do or change, PRIO included. Last year PRIO allocated internal funding to develop projects on ethnic, racial, cultural and religious discrimination. One of those projects is "Teaching African peace and conflict through European eyes (EuropAcademy)", led by Ilaria Carozza and Marie Sandne...

The Afghan Peace Talks started in September 2020, and with a second round having started in January it’s an interesting time to get an update on the process. PRIO Research Professor Kristian Berg Harpviken analyzes how the talks have gone thus far, and what can be expected moving forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the morning of February 1, Myanmar awoke to a shock: the military had deposed the democratically elected party, the National League for Democracy. Leader Aung San Su Kyii is under arrest, and as citizens have taken to the streets and social media to express their emphatic dissent, police have begun ramping up the force used against protestors. The country has a long and complicated history of p...

How did Hong Kong citizens wake up to the news of mass arrests on January 6, after such a long and engaging mass movement? Why wasn't that overwhelming support for democracy enough, and what will happen now? Marianne Dahl and Haakon Gjerløw have researched mass movements, autocracies, and democratization; they break down how the Hong Kong protests started, why it culminated in January 6, and what...

The Nordic countries, and especially Scandinavia – Norway, Sweden, and Denmark – are often viewed as relatively similar, with robust welfare states, high standards of living, gender equality, and of course beautiful nature. But the coronavirus pandemic has revealed how different they really are. Therese Sefton from PRIO and Amy Clotworthy from the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Cope...

In his essay "Technologies as Forms of Life", Langdon Winner writes about "technological sonambulism", the idea that people's ability to consider technology's effects is much slower than the pace of technological development and implementation. Researcher Bruno Oliveira Martins and Research Assistant Neven Ahmad say the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating that problem — but there's still time t...

Was it the "last, horrible and violent, dying gasp of an old, white supremacist racial order in the US", or the death of democracy? Håvard Nygård was shocked and horrified on January 6, but he says that as a researcher he still has hope. That day a mob stormed the US Capitol just as Congress was formalizing Biden's presidential victory. Sirianne Dahlum (PRIO, UiO) and Håvard Nygård (PRIO) bring th...

November 4 marks the anniversary of the start of the Iranian hostage crisis. You might have learned about it as a major breakdown in the Iran-US relationship that persists today, or maybe you just watched Argo. Jørgen Jensehaugen highlights a different angle though in his article "A Palestinian window of opportunity? The PLO, the US and the Iranian hostage crisis". This aspect of the crisis has ra...

If you’re over 18, it’s possible you’ve never touched TikTok. But this innocuous-seeming repository of amusing video has increasingly helped shape popular culture, as well as Chinese international relations. Senior Researcher Ilaria Carozza walks us through why it's important, and what else Chinese companies have been in hot water for lately. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa...

The USA-based Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests which gained new momentum this spring and summer have sparked fervent discussions and mass demonstrations around the world. In this episode, researchers Christian Davenport (PRIO, University of Michigan) and Scott Gates (PRIO, University of Oslo) talk about their perspectives on state violence related to BLM, personal experiences as Americans, and th...

Drones seem to be everywhere in the news, but what do they actually mean for civilians in everyday life? And how do the military and police use and relate to them both as tools and as threats? Most importantly, what can they tell us about a wider security context? In this episode, Bruno Oliveira Martins and Andrea Silkoset also discuss how coronavirus has affected civilians lives from a security c...

On the occasion of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded on December 10th, we're reposting our episode from the day it was announced. This year's Nobel Peace Prize went to the World Food Programme, recognizing a basic human need and its role in war and peace. But what exactly is the link between food and conflict, and is this prize as uncontroversial as it may seem? Three PRIO experts on food insecu...

Have humans evolved psychological adaptations to war? That's what Henrikas Bartusevičius will look at in his cutting-edge research project "Adapted to War" , funded by the European Research Council and hosted at PRIO. To answer this question, he’ll have to work across disciplines, conducting lab experiments and surveys. We discuss how he became interested in this topic, and what it could mean for...

How do individual deeds, in times of radical uncertainty and flux, inspire collective action? That's what PRIO's TRANSFORM project wants to find out. One of the cases TRANSFORM looks at is Myanmar. During fieldwork, an artist was brought along to talk with Daw Bawk Ja Lum Nyoi, a Kachin land rights activist from Northern Myanmar. That conversation and fieldwork was turned into a short animation. I...

On November 9, Norwegian researchers and politicians came together to celebrate UN Security Council Resolution 1325 . They also discussed the way forward, especially in light of Norway’s position on the security council starting January 2021. We're spotlighting the final session from that day: a conversation between Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Søreide, and former Deputy...

When Sweden was on the UN Security Council, it managed to push forward a women, peace and security agenda. That's a big part of what PRIO Senior Researcher and Gender Research Group Coordinator Louise Olsson has spent the last few years looking at. Now, Norway is poised to start its turn on the UNSC. What can small states like these accomplish, especially when it comes to women's rights? If you ha...

November 16–20 PRIO will co-organize Afghanistan Week alongside the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee, Chr. Michelsen Institute, and the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue. Ahead of those events featuring many speakers from Afghanistan and around the world, we get a short intro about what the last 20 years have meant for women in Afghanistan, how women are involved in the peace talks today, and wh...

US foreign policy expert Hilde Restad joins Scott Gates to discuss the Biden administration. Will he follow in Obama's footsteps? Will we see a flurry of executive orders? And what does "America First" really mean? All this and more on our post-election episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

November 4 marks the anniversary of the start of the Iranian hostage crisis. You might have learned about it as a major breakdown in the Iran-US relationship that persists today, or maybe you just watched Argo. Jørgen Jensehaugen highlights a different angle though in his article "A Palestinian window of opportunity? The PLO, the US and the Iranian hostage crisis". This aspect of the crisis has ra...

Nigeria has dominated headlines recently for the #endSARS campaign led by young people protesting years of state violence. But West African countries like Guinea and Ivory Coast, amongst others, are also experiencing turmoil, not least related to elections. Where might all of this lead in the long term, and how could it destabilize or shift the region? Plus, where does coronavirus fit in? Hosted o...

Major General Kristin Lund was the first female force commander in a United Nations peacekeeping operation. She says at that point though, she was used to being the sole female perspective in military settings. As PRIO's Practitioner in Residence, Kristin brings her on-the-ground expertise and applies it to policy and practice. Join us for the second podcast in our 1325 series, celebrating 20 year...