A civil war, also known as an intrastate war in polemology, is a war between organized groups within the same state or country. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. The term is a calque of Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.
Johan Vincent Galtung is a Norwegian sociologist, and the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies.
The democratic peace theory posits that democracies are hesitant to engage in armed conflict with other identified democracies. Among proponents of the democratic peace theory, several factors are held as motivating peace between democratic states:
The Peace Research Institute Oslo is a private research institution in peace and conflict studies, based in Oslo, Norway, with around 100 employees. It was founded in 1959 by a group of Norwegian researchers led by Johan Galtung, who was also the institute's first director (1959–1969). It publishes the Journal of Peace Research, also founded by Johan Galtung.
Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts, with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies (irenology), is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking "victory" for all parties involved in the conflict.
Vegard Bye is a Norwegian political scientist, writer, consultant and ex-politician. He has represented the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Angola and Bolivia, written extensively on Latin America, and is a consultant specializing on human rights, democracy, conflict and post-conflict societies as well as solar energy. He served as a Substitute Representative (Vararepresentant) to the Norwegian Parliament for the Socialist Left Party from Oslo (1993-1997), meeting in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Kristian Berg Harpviken is a Norwegian sociologist and researcher, and since 2009 director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Harpviken is foremost known for his competence on Afghanistan, where he has travelled extensively and conducted multiple field works since he first engaged with the country in 1989.
Patrick M. Regan is a professor of Political Science and Peace Studies at University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on International Relations and Conflict Management.
Jeffrey T. Checkel is an American academic associated with the theory of constructivist school of international relations. He is currently professor and Chair in International Politics at the European University Institute, Florence.
Ola Tunander is a research professor emeritus at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. He worked as a researcher at PRIO in the period 1987-2016. He is the son of Museum Director Ingemar Tunander and his first wife Gunvor. Tunander is married to the Chinese scholar Yao Xiaoling. He has written and edited 12 books and a number of articles on security politics, naval strategy, submarine operations, geopolitics, dual state, psychological operations (PSYOP) and Cold War history.
Nils Petter Gleditsch is a Norwegian sociologist and political scientist. He is Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). In 2009, Nils Petter Gleditsch was awarded the annual Award for Outstanding Research by the Research Council of Norway. He won the Norwegian Sociological Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
James D. Morrow is the A.F.K. Organski Collegiate Professor of World Politics at the University of Michigan and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, best known for his pioneering work in noncooperative game theory and selectorate theory.
Anocracy or semi-democracy is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship, or as a "regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features." Another definition classifies anocracy as "a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances." The term "semi-democratic" is reserved for stable regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian elements. Scholars have also distinguished anocracies from autocracies and democracies in their capability to maintain authority, political dynamics, and policy agendas. Similarly, the regimes have democratic institutions that allow for nominal amounts of competition.
Henrik Urdal is a Norwegian political scientist and the current director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Before his appointment as director in 2017 he was a research professor and research director at the institute. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Peace Research, the premier journal in the field, from 2010 to 2017.
The Karl Deutsch Award is an award in the field of international relations to prominent scholars under 40 or within ten years of defending their doctoral dissertation. It was named after Karl Deutsch and was established in 1981 by the International Studies Association (ISA). The award is presented annually to a scholar who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to the study of International Relations and Peace Research by the means of publication.
Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh is an Iranian-American researcher, university lecturer, and United Nations consultant in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, counter-terrorism, and radicalization, best known for her work in "Human Security" and for contributions in the republics of Central Asia and Afghanistan. Currently, she is a lecturer at Sciences Po, researcher, and consultant to the United Nations.
Professor Priyankar Upadhaya holds the UNESCO Chair for Peace and Intercultural Understanding at Banaras Hindu University(Asia's largest residential university), Varanasi. Professor Upadhyaya heads the Malaviya Center for Peace Research situated in the University.
Henrik Syse, is a Norwegian philosopher, author, and lecturer. He is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and a part-time Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Bjørknes College in Oslo. He was a member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Peace Prize, from 2015 to 2020, and was a member of the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission from 2002 to 2016. Syse also teaches at the Norwegian Defence University College, BI Norwegian Business School, MF Norwegian School of Theology, the University of Oslo, and other institutions of higher learning, and he is Chief Editor of the Journal of Military Ethics, a peer-reviewed journal published by Taylor & Francis.
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch is a Norwegian political scientist and a professor at the University of Essex, holding the title of Regius Professor. His main fields of research are on the topics of conflict, democratistation and non-violent mobilisation.
Lars-Erik Cederman is a Swiss-Swedish political scientist and professor of International Conflict Research at ETH Zurich. His main fields of research are ethnic inequality and conflict, power-sharing, state formation and nationalism.
