Peace and security

Contemporary approaches for tackling international peace and security issues require not only a coherent global approach, but also mutually reinforcing responses involving an effective United Nations system in tandem with strong regional organizations. We focus on strengthening United Nations peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts and on enhancing the effectiveness of military and civilian approaches to the protection of civilians.

Publications
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women)
Marina Lynch
In 2006, the Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on UN System-World Coherence proposed consolidating elements of the UN system focused on women into one larger and stronger women’s agency. This recommendation was endorsed by Kofi Annan and later unanimously approved by the General Assembly on 2 July 2010.
The United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture: Background Note
Fernando Cavalcante
This short background paper provides a brief description and explanation of the so-called United Nations „Peacebuilding Architecture‟ (PBA). It focuses on the creation of the architecture, the main mandates and core functions of its organs, as well as their interrelationships and connection with other UN bodies. This backgrounder sets the scene for the forthcoming GGI publications within the framework of the research project “The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission: Successes, Failures, Lessons Learned”.
European Civilian Crisis Management Capacities: Bridging The Resources Gap?
Hubertus Jürgenliemk
Civilian operations as part of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) – often referred to as civilian crisis management (CCM) in contrast to military operations – have become a key instrument of European foreign policy. They range from police, strengthening the rule of law, strengthening civil administration, and civil protection (outlined in the Feira European Council, June 2000) to various types of monitoring missions and support to EU Special Representatives (added in the Civilian Headline Goal 2008, December 2004). Civilian crisis management ties in closely with European values, discourse and norms arguably giving the EU a comparative advantage over actors such as NATO as a military alliance or the United Nations with a more diverse membership and the mandate to direct large-scale military peacekeeping operations as well as interim administrations and peace building missions, often containing civilian and police components. Two-thirds of EU CSDP operations were civilian or had civilian components (18 of 24). In addition, the demand for civilian crisis management has been growing since the 1990s and keeps rising. The European Common Security and Defence Policy is, in practice, largely driven by the need for civilian crisis management.
Projects
Informing Conflict Prevention, Response and Resolution (INFOCORE)
INFOCORE is an international collaborative research project funded under the 7th European Framework Program of the European Commission. It comprises leading experts from all social sciences dealing, and includes nine renowned research institutions from seven countries. Its main aim is to investigate the role(s) that media play in the emergence or prevention, the escalation or de-escalation, the management, resolution, and reconciliation of violent conflict. INFOCORE provides a systematically comparative assessment of various kinds of media, interacting with a wide range of relevant actors and producing diverse kinds of conflict coverage. It focuses on three main conflict regions – the Middle East, the West Balkans, and the African Great Lakes area. Its findings address both the socially interactive production process behind the creation of conflict coverage, and the dynamics of information and meaning disseminated via the media. INFOCORE focuses on the conditions that bring about different media roles in the cycle of conflict and peace building. It generates knowledge on the social processes underlying the production of conflict news, and the inherent dynamics of conflict news contents, in a systematically comparative fashion. Based on this perspective, the project identifies the conditions under which media play specific constructive or destructive roles in preventing, managing, and resolving violent conflict, and building sustainable peace. INFOCORE reconstructs the production process of conflict-related media contents, focusing on the interactions between professional journalists, political actors, experts/NGOs, and lay publics. It analyzes these actors’ different roles as sources or advocates, mediators, users and audiences in the production of professional news media, social media, and semi-public expert analysis. To assess the roles of media for shaping conflict perceptions and responses to ongoing conflicts, INFOCORE analyzes the dynamics of conflict news content over time. It identifies recurrent patterns of information diffusion and the polarization/consolidation of specific frames and determines the main contextual factors that influence the roles media play in conflict and peace building. Specifically, the project assesses the roles of individual agendas and resources, professional norms, media organizations and systems, political systems, and characteristics of the conflict situation. The INFOCORE project team has taken up its work on January 1, 2014. Its findings and selected data will be accessible to all public. During and beyond the project duration, we invite collaboration by interested researchers and practitioners.