Everyone is (rightly) thinking about Afghanistan, but I'm still thinking of Tunisia. Each fall I teach a Middle East politics class. And each fall I end our discussion on the Arab Spring with a debate over whether the Arab Spring actually mattered. Most students end up arguing that it didn't, or that its overall effects were negative. But they exclude Tunisia from this gloomy picture; they see it as the success story. This came to mind as...
Climate change poses substantial national, international and human security risks, but analysts have only recently shifted their focus toward how to simultaneously build peace in post-conflict environments and grapple with the dual challenges of mitigating and adapting to climate change.
Stacy D. VanDeveer is Professor of Global Governance and Human Security and Chair of the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security and Global Governance in the John C. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His research interests include connections between environmental and security issues, EU environmental and energy politics, global environmental policymaking and...
Dr. Farah Hegazi is a Researcher in SIPRI’s Climate Change and Risk programme. Her research focuses on identifying and understanding climate-related security risks, and how interventions to address the effects of climate change can be used to build peace. She is currently working on evaluating how climate-related security risks affect peacekeeping missions, and on how the World Food Programme’s climate-related interventions can potentially...
Dr Florian Krampe is a Senior Researcher and Director of SIPRI’s Climate Change and Risk Programme, specializing in peace and conflict research, environmental and climate security, and international security. His primary academic interest is the foundations of peace and security, especially the processes of building peace after armed conflict. He is currently focusing on climate security and the post-conflict management of natural resources,...
We’re in the middle of a political struggle to define “defeat” in Afghanistan. What does that mean?
This is a tragedy, but not for the reasons some think. The day after the Taliban seized Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, I received a few media inquiries. I said it's horrible that the Taliban have taken over the country, but it was also inevitable; it's unlikely a sustained US presence would have led to any other outcome. At the same time, there is no excuse for the Biden Administration's apparent failure to plan for the withdrawal, especially...
Jarrod talks with Professor Marwa Daoudy about her new book, The Origins of The Syrian Conflict: Climate Change and Human Security (Cambridge, 2020).
Raymond Kuo answers 6 (+1) questions about his 2021 book on why the institutional design of alliances changes over time.
As access to vaccines continues to hamper developing countries’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these countries also face significant public debt burdens. The Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), intended to ease pandemic-related burdens on low and middle income countries, expires at the end of 2021. The DSSI saved 43 countries $5.7 billion in total, paling in comparison to their overall debt levels. Last month, the Group of...
