PRIO Blogs
What Now for Humanitarian Studies?
Humanitarianism has long been in crisis, but since early 2025 the sector has been experiencing an unprecedented organizational, institutional, normative, and political collapse. As scholars active in the broad, inter-, and multidisciplinary field ...
PRIO Blogs
There’s a Path Forward for Turkey-Greece Cooperation — but It Requires a Dose of Realism
In the Eastern Mediterranean, tensions are largely the norm rather than the exception. Greece and Turkey, two stable states and NATO allies, enjoy largely peaceful unneighborly relations, despite occasional tension between them.
Report – External Series
The Consequences and Prospects of Israel’s Ban of UNRWA
The Cairo Review of Global Affairs
PRIO Blogs
American Democracy is in Danger, but Not Dead
Trump and his supporters are undermining American democracy, posing a real threat of democratic breakdown. The consequences would be dramatic, extending far beyond the United States. However, there is still a good chance that democracy, in the end...
PRIO Blogs
Russia Refuses to Make Meaningful Step on Road to Peace
U.S., European, and Ukrainian peace-making policies are now aligned at a possible breakthrough point, as differences in means and methods transmute into complementarities. This fast evolution starkly contrasts with the immobility of Russia’s posit...
Wednesday, 26 Feb 2025
Moving and Staying: the Path to Middle Class Life in Asia
A Filipino nurse with family in Manila, three intertwined lives in Mumbai, a ‘self-made’ man in Karachi and the journey of a woman in Hanoi. Through four animations, the MigrationRhythms project explores how migration shapes social mobility across...
PRIO Blogs
Contesting the AI-Cybersecurity Nexus: Lessons Learned from the United Kingdom
In an age where so-called artificial intelligence (AI) seems to revolutionise every corner of our lives, it’s no surprise that its intersection with cybersecurity has become a major focus for governments worldwide. Where cybersecurity and AI were ...
PRIO Blogs
Triumphalism in Moscow About Setback in Peace-Making for Ukraine Could be Short-Lived
Moscow’s mouthpieces competed to celebrate and ridicule the individuals involved in the February 28 talks in Washington, D.C. between Ukraine and the United States. To the surprise of many, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the White Ho...
PRIO Blogs
How Colombia’s Disarmament Process Transformed Weapons Into Symbols of Peace
In 2016, the Colombian government and the guerrilla group FARC-EP ended their five decade-long war. As part of the peace agreement, FARC-EP’s weapons had to be collected, a process known as disarmament. By 2017, UN observers had received and remov...
PRIO Blogs
Moscow Seeks to Regain Initiative in the Game of Peace Talks
Jubilation in Moscow after the phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump on February 12 has given way to contemplations of the consequences and even to confusion caused by the barrage of statements...
Security Dialogue
Poison: The politics behind pesticides and chemical weapons
Compounds labelled as chemical weapons and pesticides share common active chemical ingredients, which function as nerve agents to humans and insects whether they are considered a form of warfare or a farming staple. Lice: Image from Pixabay Why ar...
Wednesday, 5 Feb 2025
Nina Græger Appointed as New Director of PRIO
PRIO is pleased to announce the appointment of Nina Græger as its next Director, effective 1 July 2025.
PRIO Blogs
Trump Vol. 2 Will Impact Global Development
The United States is by far the world’s largest provider of foreign aid, but it is completely unclear whether and how this will continue. Trump speaks of quickly achieving peace but at the same time he threatens neighboring countries. One thing is...
PRIO Blogs
Conversations on Ending the War in Ukraine Grow Louder and Emptier
The first week of the “Golden Age” of U.S. policy announced by President Donald Trump registered a stream of messages from the White House on the need to bring the war in Ukraine to an end (White House, January 20). The Kremlin duly responded with...
Security Dialogue
Can Videogames Shape Public Understandings of Weaponized Artificial Intelligence?
Image byLukasfromPixabay Millions of consumers play videogames like Call of Duty and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon. The battlefields these series portray increasingly feature drones, tanks, and robots that select and engage targets on their own, thanks...
Book Review
War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World
Book review in JPR Book Notes
PRIO Blogs
Russian Counter-Offensive in the International Arena Has Lost Momentum
One of the key goals for 2024 that President Vladimir Putin had apparently set at the end of the second year of the Ukraine war was to execute a sustained foreign policy counter-offensive to reduce Russia’s international isolation to irrelevance. ...
Monday, 9 Dec 2024
PRIO secures funding for four new innovative projects
PRIO has successfully secured funding for four new projects to support research addressing today’s critical societal challenges, including two focused on Norwegian security and defence.
Tuesday, 10 Dec 2024
PRIO in the Republic of Korea for its Action with Women and Peace Conference
On December 10th, PRIO Research Director Louise Olsson and GPS Coordinator Stine A. Bosheim contributed to the Action with Women and Peace Conference (AWP), in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Journal Article
A theory of the symbolic role of disarmament during peace processes: The laying down of FARC-EP’s weapons in Colombia
Journal article in Security Dialogue
Popular Article
How Colombia’s disarmament process transformed weapons into symbols of peace
Popular article in The Conversation
PRIO Blogs
Escalation Management: Putin-style, Ukraine-challenged, and NATO-pursued
Russian missile strike on the sprawling industrial complex in Dnipro on November 21 produced far more strategic resonance than material damage – and has reopened hard questions about the constant mutation of the long Russia-Ukraine war and the met...
PRIO Blogs
An Untested Refugee Theory
From late January 2025, the Israeli ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) will come into effect. What does this mean for the rights of the Palestinian refugees, and who will then take responsibility for h...
Friday, 29 Nov 2024
Thomas Hylland Eriksen: Words of Gratitude
On 27 November, PRIO received the sad news that Professor of social anthropology Thomas Hylland Eriksen passed away.
PRIO Blogs
Putin’s ‘Three Escalations’ Affect Prospect of Peace in Ukraine
Russia’s strategy in executing its aggressive war against Ukraine, passing the 1,000-day mark last week, puts the country’s economy, society, and armed forces under enormous pressure that Moscow’s militaristic propaganda cannot quite cover. As Rus...
PRIO Blogs
Protection of Civilians in Crisis: Geneva Conventions at 75
With the devastating news from Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan among other wars, we witness a crisis of the international regime for protecting civilians in armed conflict. However, this is not a total collapse but a return to the troubling world that the...
PRIO Blogs
Making Women Combatants Visible: Steps Towards Gender-Responsive Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration
In October the Security Council met for its annual Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Open Debate under the theme of “Women Building Peace in a Changing Environment.” Despite the WPS agenda’s goals for including women in all aspects of security and ...
Monday, 18 Nov 2024
How Civil Society Can Counter Global Authoritarianism – Insights from the PRIO Annual Peace Address
PRIO hosted the 15th Annual Peace Address on 12 November, focusing on a pressing global concern: the state of democracy and the vital role of civil society in its preservation and renewal.
PRIO Blogs
Israel Has Escalated Its Shadow War Against UNRWA. What Happens Now?
On 4 November, the Israeli Foreign Ministry cancelled the agreement the country signed with UNRWA in 1967. A week earlier, the Knesset had passed legislation banning UNRWA from operating in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Why is I...
PRIO Blogs
Authorship and Involuntary Attribution: How and Why Should We Contest AI Manipulation?
Technology is radically changing the work and role of scholars and the function of academic publishing. Fake and fabricated content (data, facts, arguments, claims, conclusions) undermines the foundations of knowledge in a democratic society. Faki...