Peace Research Institute Frankfurt

Social anthropology and social sciences in general have failed to take seriously enough the imaginary and narrative character of much of what constitutes persons, social life and organised society. An impulse to ground analysis and theorisation in illusory fixedness, such as essentialist notions of identities, persists, despite the abundant literature that undermines such thinking. It is easy to find texts which uncritically use identity categories not just as descriptors of emic perceptions and beliefs, but as etic analytical and explanatory tools or methodological variables. This chapter uses the concept of personal identity as a basis for a theorisation that avoids the pitfalls of reified and essentialist identity thinking.

In international politics, coercion and threats by other states strongly influence the societies and policies of the targeted states. A prevailing sense of endangerment shapes perceptions of self and other, affects the balance of power among political lobby groups, and influences how leaders prioritize policies. The perpetrating state, as well as groups perceived to be associated with it, tend to viewed as intrinsically hostile.

Russia's first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 marked the culmination of Russia's dissociation from the project of institutionalised pan-European security and from the global liberal order more generally. While not denying the relevance of studying the causes of Russia's attacks on Ukraine, this study focuses on Russia's progressing dissociation from Western institutions that preceded the escalation of military tensions. Processes of dissociation-defined as the intentional distancing from the core rules and norms of institutions-occur rather often and might even become a dominant feature of world politics as deglobalisation proceeds. However, this phenomenon has rarely been tackled in academic research. What has been overlooked in the scholarly debate is the specific forms and underlying causes of dissociations from multilateral arrangements. Delving into the controversial history of Russia's drifting away from the European security regime complex after the end of the Cold War this paper demonstrates why Russia's leadership felt so estranged from the order whose creation it actively endorsed. Based on more than 30 interviews with experts of Russian foreign policy as well as Russian and Western diplomats and policymakers, this paper demonstrates how Moscow's disenchantment with European security institutions intensified as these institutions appeared in the Kremlin's eyes structurally unresponsive to evolving dynamics in Russian-Western relations.

This article criticizes the way fossil capitalization dispossesses the future. Turning fossil fuel into capital entails the legal enclosure, calculative cheapening, and material extraction/pollution of the future. Fossil investors’ ‘present values’ hinge on the misery of those dispossessed by climate emergencies. Fossil capitalization is premised on ‘future theft’ understood as a temporally inverted form of ‘original accumulation’. The durability of inequality created by asset wealth is compounded by the durability of carbon waste. Climate economics legitimizes and entrenches this pattern by discounting the future and failing to assign responsibilities for climate costs. Tort litigations allow climate victims to sue fossil fuel companies for compensation. However, they remain limited by the strictures of liberal property law. Climate reparations promise to overcome these limits by reclaiming the stolen future without recourse to previously settled property rights. Still, they cannot escape the vicious tempo-material trajectories engendered by fossil assets and their carbon afterlives.

Why did the Soviet Union and the United States refrain from using nuclear weapons during Cold War crises, and what can we learn from their restraint in navigating today’s confrontation fraught with nuclear threats? This paper examines the crucial lessons from Cold War nuclear standoffs to provide insight into the growing nuclear risks in today’s geopolitical landscape, particularly in the context of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. By analysing the Berlin and Cuban Missile Crises, the study explores how both sides pursued military-political confrontation under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Drawing parallels between these historical events and current tensions, the paper concludes with how Cold War nuclear strategies and crisis management could potentially guide present-day efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict.

Papaverine (PV) has been previously identified as a promising candidate in SARS‐CoV‐2 repurposing screens. In this study, we further investigated both its antiviral and immunomodulatory properties. PV displayed antiviral efficacy against SARS‐CoV‐2 and influenza A viruses H1N1 and H5N1 in single infection as well as in co‐infection. We demonstrated PV's activity against various SARS‐CoV‐2 variants and identified its action at the post‐entry stage of the viral life cycle. Notably, treatment of air‐liquid interface (ALI) cultures of primary bronchial epithelial cells with PV significantly inhibited SARS‐CoV‐2 levels. Additionally, PV was found to attenuate interferon (IFN) signaling independently of viral infection. Mechanistically, PV decreased the activation of the IFN‐stimulated response element following stimulation with all three IFN types by suppressing STAT1 and STAT2 phosphorylation and nuclear translocation. Furthermore, the combination of PV with approved COVID‐19 therapeutics molnupiravir and remdesivir demonstrated synergistic effects. Given its immunomodulatory effects and clinical availability, PV shows promising potential as a component for combination therapy against COVID‐19.

We examine if and how museums contribute to unravelling the fabric of settler colonialism in Canada and take them into view as institutions of the colonial education system: schools, universities and museums play key roles in constructing and spreading certain collective narratives and images, and in silencing others. While all states employ “imagined communities” to legitimate and reproduce the existing order, in colonial states this often includes images and narratives that emphasize the greatness of the colonizers as bringers of civilization. The violence perpetrated by colonization is usually left out. This is the case in Canada as well and is in stark contrast to the epistemic and structural violence that became established with colonial settlement. Our research investigated Canadian universities and museums’ efforts in working through their share in this colonial power system. Being key agents in general education, they select what and whose knowledge is in- or excluded but also have the potential to address conventionally learned misconceptions or distorted images. Canada started its official journey towards “reconciliation” in 2015. We ask whether and how museums take this up: What are they contributing to the declared effort to tackle the colonial system – of which they are a part? Results are presented from an online analysis of how universities and museums across Canada engage in communication strategies surrounding coloniality before we zoom in on museums and focus in more detail and in comparison, on how the Museum of Vancouver created a special space to grapple with the situation.

This study investigates researcher variability in computational reproduction, an activity for which it is least expected. Eighty-five independent teams attempted numerical replication of results from an original study of policy preferences and immigration. Reproduction teams were randomly grouped into a ‘transparent group’ receiving original study and code or ‘opaque group’ receiving only a method and results description and no code. The transparent group mostly verified original results (95.7% same sign and p-value cutoff), while the opaque group had less success (89.3%). Second-decimal place exact numerical reproductions were less common (76.9 and 48.1%). Qualitative investigation of the workflows revealed many causes of error, including mistakes and procedural variations. When curating mistakes, we still find that only the transparent group was reliably successful. Our findings imply a need for transparency, but also more. Institutional checks and less subjective difficulty for researchers ‘doing reproduction’ would help, implying a need for better training. We also urge increased awareness of complexity in the research process and in ‘push button’ replications.

Since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the focus of Islamism research has been on individual radicalisation processes, the historical development of Islamism and individual counter-terrorism measures. However, the perspective of the German security authorities on dealing with Islamism has hardly been systematically analysed in the literature to date. This article analyses reports from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and evaluates interviews with employees of the BfV and the German police in order to understand how the security authorities have assessed the threat posed by Islamism in Germany since 2001 and how they present this threat to the public. This provides information about the challenges the authorities face and what measures they consider necessary. The analysis makes it possible to examine how Islamism is perceived by the security authorities and how uniformly or differentiatedly this threat is assessed. The analysis also shows which various factors influence this threat assessment and which threat perceptions characterise the individual actions of employees. The reports of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution have stated a constant threat from Islamist activities and Islamist actors since 2001, although the way in which the threat is articulated has varied over the years. In addition to the threat assessments, the interviews also provide an insight into the perceived requirements and favoured solutions for dealing with Islamist activities. Particularly in connection with the prevention of politically motivated acts of violence, the interviewees described a high level of pressure to perform and expectations that can hardly be met. It is clear that institutional and regional factors have an influence on individual assessments and on the reports of the various state offices for the protection of the constitution (LfV).

This article examines the intersection of political violence, artistic expression, and collaborative interdisciplinary research methodologies, with the Khartoum massacre of 3 June, 2019, and its artistic appropriation by Sudanese artist Amna Elhassan as case study. It addresses the question: How can interdisciplinary collaborations between artists and researchers enhance the understanding and representation of political violence? Drawing on theories of art as resistance, curatorial practices as ethnographic method, and peace and conflict studies, this study employs visual analysis, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation to analyze Elhassan’s mural “December,” a large-scale temporary memorial installed at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt from 4 November, 2022 to 12 February, 2023. The Khartoum massacre occurred within Sudan’s revolutionary movement, violently ending a political sit-in that had become a hub of community building, political and aesthetic expression. This research explores how Elhassan’s artwork, which depicts elongated figures and Arabic text against a representation of the Nile and accompanied by texts by the author, served as both documentation of and resistance to state violence. The work creates an alternative narrative and resists the killings as the end of the protesters journey. Artistic-academic collaborations can lead to a more nuanced understanding of political violence and produce accessible outputs for broader audiences. The study reveals how “December” functioned as a site of memory, challenging narratives of victimhood and emphasizing the ongoing nature of non-violent resistance. The research contributes to emerging scholarship on the role of art in conflict studies and peacebuilding, bridging gaps between art history, political science, and peace and conflict studies. It advocates for innovative methodologies that understand artistic practices as vital in documenting and resisting political violence, while addressing challenges such as power imbalances and ethical concerns in collaborative interdisciplinary research. By examining the Khartoum massacre through the lens of Elhassan’s work, this article ultimately contributes to broader discourses on political participation, artistic appropriation of political violence, peace-building, and social justice.

Introduction to Special Issue on representations of poltical violence in mseum spaces

This article analyses vector control methods that use microbes to fight diseases, such as dengue, Zika, or West-Nile, by infecting mosquitoes with an endosymbiotic bacterium, Wolbachia. These methods affect mosquitoes’ capacity to transmit viruses to humans, either by suppressing the whole mosquito population, or by neutralizing the pathogen in the insect itself. Drawing on fieldwork, we show how these approaches instantiate a biopolitical strategy that we describe as ‘symbiotic engineering’: technoscientific attempts to secure forms of collective life by creating a symbiotic relationship through which the biological reaches into the social and vice versa. We situate the use of Wolbachia in the history of biocontrol techniques, delineate its economic rationalities, and explore the transformation it inflicts on communal ties. We show how the aim of addressing ‘global’ disease through microbial means places symbiotic engineering in the milieu of residential areas. Scaling-up vector control requires attending to a messy intermediate space affected by climate conditions, human habits, the built environment, and chemical residues.

This chapter provides an in-depth introduction to the CPS landscape. It presents empirical results obtained from expert interviews in Germany and through participation in preparatory seminars for CPS peace workers before their departure. This chapter allows for a deeper understanding of the CPS. It also lays the foundation for further empirical research and understanding. Initially, the CPS is presented from the perspective of the implementing organizations. Subsequently, it answers who the local partners are.

This chapter takes a critical, analytical look at this very collaboration and analyzes challenges that the CPS faces. In particular, this empirical analysis will make it clear that organizations like the CPS want to take local actors seriously in their collaboration and pursue a (supposedly) partnership approach in their work. However, they are confronted with inherent power structures that systematically hinder their efforts for partnership, local responsibility, and horizontal engagement. The results are presented using stories from participant observation. This ethnographic, innovative way of presentation allows readers to better understand the research and subsequent reflection.

This chapter initially illuminates the case selection of the three countries where research took place outside of Germany. These are: Kenya, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. This is followed by a brief general overview of these countries, briefly touching on past conflict lines and those conflicts that were relevant during the research. Finally, the situation of civil society and in particular the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) is described.

The following chapter first introduces participant observation as a method. It initially discusses the methodological origin. Then, individual research strategies and the approach in the field are described in more detail. The research process is divided into different phases and is repeatedly critically questioned. Subsequently, a transfer of the method into political science and communication studies takes place. Taking these disciplines into account, the method is then analyzed with special consideration of its feasibility and implementability, before expert interviews as a supplementary method are discussed. Finally, an ethical consideration of the method of participant observation takes place. In addition, after each subchapter, a reflection of my own research is carried out and it is described how I proceeded in the research.

This chapter begins with a general introduction and clarification of terms related to peace consolidation and civilian conflict resolution in particular. This is followed by a consideration of the special role of civil society organizations in peace work. This is an initial presentation, which serves to better locate the CPS, which is carried out by civil society organizations. This is followed by a detailed presentation of the CPS. This detailed presentation is helpful in order to better classify and understand the empirical part, which includes case studies of the CPS. In general, a power-critical view of Civil Conflict Management, the work of civil society organizations, and the CPS is also taken in all chapters.

This book deals with the element of partnership in the collaboration of actors in peace work. Therefore, this chapter first presents what is known about partnership collaboration between local and international or external actors in peace work. Using a story from research on CPS (from a partnership and power-critical perspective), this topic is first illuminated ethnographically and practically, and then introduced into the discourse on power.

This chapter develops a conceptual framework by discussing various theoretical considerations on peacebuilding, particularly the inclusion of local actors. The theoretical concepts presented here are to be understood as a toolbox in the methodological sense, to subsequently illustrate what the theoretical, normative level looks like in practice. In general, the theoretical concepts serve as an expectation horizon that sharpens the focus for the actual research.

This chapter summarizes the results of the work and revisits the question: “To what extent is there an equal partnership of actors in the context of civil conflict resolution? To what extent is the cooperation in civil conflict resolution characterized by power asymmetries?” The chapter explains the “fairy tale of equal partnership” and provides recommendations for changes in peace work.