The existing literature offers contrasting views on the causes and effects of non-aggression pacts. Some scholars contend that these agreements impose audience costs that prevent an ongoing rivalry from escalating to war. Others claim that states use non-aggression pacts to signal to others that their rivalry is over and that their future relations will be peaceful. Scholars disagree as to the impact non-aggression pacts have on violent conflict. I demonstrate that various definitional and coding issues beset the literature, resulting in the incorporation of many agreements that should not be considered as non-aggression pacts. I then make a threefold argument about non-aggression pacts. First, non-aggression pacts came into being in the 1920s amid emerging norms proscribing interstate warfare. Second, they saw frequent use in interstate Europe. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union used them to manipulate those norms so as to make themselves appear more acceptable despite their revisionism. Finally, many friendship treaties, which have been miscast as non-aggression pacts, are a separate type of agreement that became common among those post-colonial states that acquired independence during and immediately after the Cold War. Timeless arguments regarding non-aggression pacts thus reify these agreements and overlook key motives behind their use.

Past research has documented ingroup favoritism, the tendency to cooperate more with ingroup members than outgroup members, in a wide range of intergroup contexts, and extensively discussed conditions under which ingroup favoritism emerges. However, previous studies have predominantly focused on a simplistic intergroup context, for instance, where group boundaries are static, and one group membership is present. To fill the gap, we leveraged data from professional volleyball players and investigated the influence of (1) varying levels of intergroup conflict salience, (2) past and present group memberships, and (3) national team membership on intergroup cooperation. Contrary to our hypotheses and the social identity perspective, we found that conflict salience and former ingroup membership did not influence intergroup cooperation. Additionally, we found that the more national team players there are in the ingroup, the more cooperative those who play for the national team are with ingroup members, leading to increased ingroup favoritism.

United Nations peacekeeping is experiencing a generational shift as several large missions downsize and close. Amid this change, this essay considers the future of the Protection of Civilians (PoC) mandate, which has been a priority of UN peacekeeping since it was first authorized twenty-five years ago. It argues that PoC has evolved significantly, expanding from a narrow focus on physical protection from immediate threats to a holistic approach that includes establishing a protective environment. It suggests that while the PoC mandate has proven effective in reducing violence, the future is fraught with four significant challenges: waning state commitment to UN peacekeeping, the fragmentation of global peace and security mechanisms, shifting local perceptions in a rapidly changing information landscape, and mounting disillusionment among UN personnel. This essay contends that these obstacles underscore the inherently political nature of PoC, where power dynamics and perceptions profoundly impact mission success. As peacekeeping missions scale back, PoC remains essential but increasingly precarious, demanding strategic adaptability and sustained commitment. Ultimately, the essay argues that without renewed political and institutional dedication, PoC’s effectiveness—and the UN’s credibility—will be difficult to uphold in the face of evolving conflict dynamics and geopolitical shifts.

This paper explores the evolution of the concept of peace in the context of a globalized and digitalized 21st century, proposing a novel vision that shifts from viewing peace as a thing or a condition, to understanding peace as dynamic and relational process that emerges through human interactions. Building on - yet also going beyond - traditional definitions of peace as something to be found through inner reflection (virtue ethics), as the product of reason, contracts and institutions (Enlightenment philosophy), and as the absence of different forms of violence (modern peace research), this paper introduces a new meso-level theory on networks, emphasizing the importance of connections, interactions and relationships in the physical and online worlds. The paper is structured around three main objectives: conceptualizing relational peace in terms of the quantity and quality of interactions, mapping these interactions into networks of peace, and examining how these networks interact with their environment, including the influence of digital transformation and artificial intelligence. By integrating insights from ethical and peace research literature, the paper makes theoretical, conceptual, and methodological contributions towards understanding peace as an emergent property of human behavior. Through this innovative approach, the paper aims to provide clarity on how peace (and violence) emerges through interactions and relations in an increasingly networked and digitalized global society, offering a foundation for future empirical research and concerted policy action in this area. It highlights the need for bridging normative and descriptive sciences to better understand and promote peace in the digital age.

This study explores the leadership dynamics, conflict, and group cohesion during Roald Amundsen’s South Pole expedition, with a particular focus on the critical confrontation between Amundsen and Hjalmar Johansen. Through a dual-method approach that integrates Narrative and Thematic Analysis, the research delves into the diaries and autobiographical writings of key expedition members. The findings reveal that while Amundsen’s authoritative leadership was pivotal to the expedition’s success, it also fostered significant internal conflict, particularly with Johansen. This tension highlights the delicate balance between decisive leadership and the need for inclusiveness in high-stakes environments. The study provides a nuanced understanding of how varying levels of loyalty among team members influenced group dynamics, offering insights that extend beyond the historical context of polar exploration to contemporary leadership challenges in extreme conditions.

We experimentally investigate the effects of conflict budget on conflict intensity. We run a between-subjects Tullock contest in which we vary the contest budget from Low to Medium to High, while keeping the risk-neutral Nash equilibrium bid the same. We find a non-monotonic relationship: bids increase when the budget increases from Low to Medium, but decrease when the budget further increases from Medium to High. This can happen for players with concave utility, if a high budget has a wealth effect that reduces the marginal utility of winning resulting in lower bids. To test this, we run a Wealth treatment in which the budget remains the Medium, but contestants receive a fixed payment (as wealth) independent of the contest outcome. The bids in the Wealth treatment are lower than the Medium treatment, but are not different from the High treatment, supporting the hypothesis of a wealth effect. We then support this empirical observation by a theoretical model with risk-aversion.

Muslims in the Central African Republic have experienced extreme violence for more than a decade. Through ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, this article shows how the foundations for contemporary violence were created through colonial and postcolonial state-making. The civilizing mission of republican colonialism set Muslims apart. Lifestyle and mobility were never fully colonized; escape depicted difference. Nationalist liberation mythologies render Muslim citizenship as foreign, precarious, and subject to ongoing contestation. Pentecostalism, a lateral liberation philosophy presented as patriotism, provides power to anti-Muslim discourse. Violence against Muslims is situated in an accumulated “pastness” of state-making and struggle in Central African historiography.

The number of conflict-affected individuals is climbing. Humanitarian organizations are increasingly needed to provide medical care when governments lack capacity to care for affected communities. While the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Medical Team (EMT) initiative provides a verification process for organizations seeking to provide health care in the setting of various disasters, it does not address the unique operational challenges of deployment into conflict-affected communities. One solution is the implementation of a supplemental process similar to current verification procedures, wherein the WHO adopts a policy encouraging teams to complete an additional conflict-oriented verification, based on WHO Red Book recommendations, if they plan to operate in conflict settings The EMT initiative possesses expertise and the convening authority to drive international standards for care provision during health emergencies and is the obvious platform to create a rigorous process to ensure that EMTs in conflict zones are appropriately trained, vetted, and accountable.

Cooperation motives are traditionally elicited in experimental games where players have misaligned interests that yield noncooperation in equilibrium. Research finds a typology of behavioral types such as free riders and conditional cooperators. However, intrinsic motives in conflict settings such as appeasement, punishment, and greed are elusive in such games where noncooperation is the equilibrium prediction. To identify types in the dark side of human interaction, we apply hierarchical cluster analysis to data from the Vendetta Game, which has a payoff structure similar to public goods games but a dynamic move structure that yields cooperation in equilibrium. It allows us to observe diverse non-equilibrium conflict strategies, and to understand how feuds perpetuate. We relate our method and typology to other social dilemmas.