In this introduction to the "Where Heritage Meets Violence" series, Annalisa Bolin encapsulates contemporary discussions and recent research on the connection between cultural heritage and violence—physical, symbolic, and structural. She argues that by acknowledging and engaging with these dynamics “we can negotiate what our societies become.”

Program Director Tatiana Carayannis provides some of the conceptual basis for a new SSRC program on Understanding Violent Conflict. This essay traces the program’s origins in new understandings of the complexity of contemporary international conflict—including the importance of local dimensions and the extra-local nature of so much violence. Building on the recent work of the Justice and Security Research Program (JSRP) on how public authority is exercised in conflict settings, the UVC will take these lessons in a range of new directions, especially in the Middle East and Africa.

Introduction For a long time Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State or Ogaden has been a theatre of violent confrontation between the […]

This article challenges the assumption that the absence of violence among factions in conflict is the chief goal around which peacemaking efforts should operate, based on research in El Salvador in the wake of the 1992 Salvadoran Peace Accords.  

Researchers have long debated how radio broadcasts affected the dynamics of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; this article examines whether and how Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines coverage was associated with core aspects of the violence.

A meta-analysis of 172 quantitative studies assess the effects of wartime violence on civic and political engagement, attitudes toward wartime enemies, group identification, and trust.