Root of Conflict

What are the prospects for peace in Yemen and how do we hold international actors accountable? In this episode, we speak with Afrah Nasser, a researcher with Human Rights Watch investigating humanitarian law violations and human rights abuses in Yemen. A former activist and independent journalist in Sana’a, Nasser has been advocating for human rights and justice in Yemen for over a decade. This po...

Can intergroup contact build social cohesion after conflict? In this episode, we speak with Dr. Salma Mousa, a political scientist studying social cohesion after conflict and what policies can build trust between groups. She talks about her latest study on building social cohesion between Christian and Muslim youth soccer players in post-ISIS Iraq and the challenges to achieving peace between grou...

Refugee populations face unique challenges to mental health and overcoming trauma in resettlement. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Aimee Hilado, a clinical social worker and researcher specializing in immigrant and refugee mental health and Associate Professor of Social Work at Northeastern Illinois University. Dr. Hilado is the founder and director of the RefugeeOne Wellness Program, a mental...

How do researchers assess the impact of peacebuilding interventions? And what can we learn from examining existing literature as a whole? In this episode, we speak with Ada Sonnenfeld, a former Evaluation Specialist with the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). She talks about her work managing systematic reviews and evidence gap map projects, which can help policymakers make more...

The relationship between illegal financial flows and state-level violence is present in conflicts around the world, and is especially pronounced in Afghanistan. In particular, the country’s thriving drug market based on the opium trade has proven to be a major economic factor that has been fueling the ongoing conflict. In this episode of Root of Conflict, Aishwarya Raje and Mwangi Thuita speak wit...

The War in Afghanistan following the US invasion in 2001 is almost two decades old. In recent years there’s been a growing appetite for a non-military resolution to the conflict. We speak with Laurel Miller — the Asia Program Director at International Crisis Group and a former state department official working on Afghanistan and Pakistan — about the ongoing negotiations between the Taliban and Afg...

Climate change will affect rich and poor countries — but poorer countries are predicted to pay the greatest human and economic cost. In this episode we interview Amir Jina, an Assistant Professor at University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, researching how economic and social development is shaped by the environment. He uses economics, climate science, and remote sensing to understan...

In this episode of Root of Conflict, Pearson Fellows Daniella Choi (MPP ‘20) and Daniel Vallejo (MPP ‘21) speak with Dr. Rebecca Wolfe and Maurice Amollo. Dr. Wolfe is a Lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy and is an expert on political violence, conflict, and humanitarian policy, and Maurice Amollo is the Chief of Party for Mercy Corps in Nigeria. The two of them have worked together on...

Frances Z. Brown is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She recently co-authored a report titled “Coronavirus in Conflict Zones: A Sobering Landscape”, which examines how the COVID-19 pandemic is playing out in 12 different conflict-affected states, and how efforts to contain the virus increase the likelihood of aggravating those conflicts. This podcast is produced i...

The Citizenship Amendment Act and Article 370 was abrogated late in 2019 in the Kashmir, which further restricted autonomy in the region and increased unrest in the state. In this episode, we speak to Salwa Shameem, who is a film maker and strategy consultant, and Rohool, a local activist in Kashmir, about the conflict and its broader implications. This podcast is produced in partnership with the...

The Global Fragility Act (GFA) was passed by Congress as part of the 2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act and was signed into law on December 20, 2019. The bill represented a historic victory for the peacebuilding field, which has long advocated for the GFA as a way forward to prevent violent conflict. The Alliance for Peacebuilding, a non-partisan network of over 110 organizations working to buil...

There are currently over 70 million people displaced by war, conflict, and persecution worldwide (more than the population of Thailand). The vast majority of them are in low- and middle-income countries without adequate resources to support and resettle them. We spoke to Dr. Cindy Huang, vice president of strategic outreach at Refugees International and a visiting fellow at the Center for Global D...

For the last several years, police violence in America has come to the forefront of public consciousness. It is an issue that can polarize the country but for years, there lacked a data-driven analysis of police violence on a national level, and concrete policy recommendations on the issue were hard to come by.  On this episode of Root of Conflict, Pearson Fellows Sonnet Frisbie and Mwangi Thuita...

What is the role of big data in modern-day conflict? How prepared are defense leaders in interpreting data and effectively leveraging its use on the battlefield? How has cyber warfare evolved over the past decade, and what lessons can we draw from the Russian example in Crimea? We attempt to address these questions in this episode of Root of Conflict, where Pearson Fellows Sonnet Frisbie (MPP ‘21)...

Are female leaders more likely to engage in warfare than male leaders? In this episode of “Root of Conflict” we spoke with Dr. Oeindrila Dube, the Philip K. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies at the Harris School of Public Policy to help answer this question. Dr. Dube recently co-authored a paper titled “Queens”, which examines Europe from 1480-1913 to see if states led by women experien...

In this episode of Root of Conflict, we spoke with Andrew Lavali, the founding Executive Director of the Institute for Governance Reform (IGR), a research and evidence-based advocacy think tank based in Sierra Leone. In this interview, we discussed the concept of “social accountability” in a post-conflict context, as well as the IGR’s work in promoting sustainable development and strengthening pol...

In August 2016, negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) reached a historic agreement to end the civil conflict that had been fought in Colombia for over forty years. In an exclusive interview with Root of Conflict, Ambassador Sergio Jaramillo Caro, former High Commissioner for Peace in Colombia and lead negotiator of the talks between the...

Professor James Robinson (Pearson Institute director and co-author with Daron Acemoglu of the bestselling book Why Nations Fail) sat down with Root of Conflict to discuss his new book "The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies and the Fate of Liberty." In his new book, he and his co-author explore how an incessant struggle between the state and society allows countries to enter a narrow corridor betw...