Twenty-five years after the adoption of the United Nations (UN) Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, India continues to present itself as a committed advocate abroad while maintaining silence at home. The image of women in peacekeeping uniforms serves as proof of progress, even as women in India’s conflict affected Kashmir, Manipur, and Chhattisgarh confront militarization, displacement, and loss. Their daily acts of care, resistance, and survival show that India’s engagement with WPS…

The persistence of political corruption and violence in the Philippines is best understood as habitual individual adaptation to a criminogenic environment. Actions arise from the interaction between personal values and the moral norms of the surroundings; between what people see as right and what their environment treats as acceptable. In the Philippines, permissive societal and elite social norms make political corruption – and to a lesser extent, violence – appear justifiable and ordinary,…

2025 marks 25 years since the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). The WPS Agenda recognizes that women’s participation, protection, and prevention of violence are central to achieving sustainable peace. While often discussed as a formal policy framework adopted by states, the agenda is not simply a UN document but the result of decades of sustained advocacy by women’s and feminist movements around the world. It emerged through…

After billions lost to flood control fraud, ghost projects, and political kickbacks in the Philippines, the current flood control scandal is just the latest in a long line of corruption cases. This article looks at how officials and their accomplices profit while weak oversight and entrenched practices ensure that patterns repeat, suggesting efforts to curb corruption by focusing on the structural determinants that enable it.

Over the last eleven years we have witnessed the rise and subsequent fall of feminist foreign policy. Initially heralded as a progressive answer to power politics, several states have recently dropped their feminist foreign policies, announcing that they will continue implementing the policy substance without the ‘feminist’ label. One way in which states want to achieve this is by pursuing the Women, Peace and Security agenda with renewed vigour. Given these developments, can the Women, Peace…

At the African Union, the Women, Peace and Security Agenda has been institutionalized both through dedicated new structures and through mainstreaming into existing structures. In this blog article, Camille Vern sheds light on an instance of the latter, examining the AU Panel of the Wise as an actor implementing the WPS agenda as part of its conflict prevention mandate. How does the panel mainstream gender through its activities and the wider African Peace and Security Architecture? What lessons…

The Women, Peace and Security Agenda stands as both an achievement and a contested project on the African continent. This article pays tribute to the countless individuals and collectives within the African Union, national institutions, civil society, and local communities that have worked tirelessly to bring WPS to life. By tracing its genesis, taking stock of institutional milestones, and shedding light on the often‑overlooked daily efforts that sustain it, we celebrate the WPS Agenda’s…

The Brazilian Amazon is a dangerous place for social activists, particularly those who fight for land rights and environmental protection. In our recent study, published in the Journal of Peace Research, we find that high levels of deforestation are strongly linked to the assassination of activists. We argue that this is due to the highly territorialized nature of this criminal practice, which involves dispossessing local communities of their land. This violence is driven by local…

When the Sagaing earthquake struck Myanmar in March 2025, much of the international spotlight fell on the military government’s limited relief efforts and continued bombing campaigns. But in a country where half the territory is estimated to be under rebel control, a crucial story remained overlooked: how rebel groups provided aid and assisted local relief efforts in territories under their control. This research examines how these relief efforts challenged state narratives, serving as a claim…

Germany has long withheld diplomatic recognition of Palestinian statehood, waiting for a formal peace process to create a sovereign Palestinian state. However, with the ongoing Gaza war, hostage crisis, and increasing West Bank annexation risk, peace prospects are dimmer than ever. By joining the majority of world nations in recognizing Palestinian statehood, Germany could take a small step toward affirming Palestinian self-determination rights and preserving the possibility of a future…