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A collection of videos from PeaceCon 2024

A collection of videos from PeaceCon 2024

On September 10th - 12th, AfP and the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) held the 12th annual PeaceCon, the premier global gathering designed to address contemporary challenges in peacebuilding and conflict resolution. Taking place in hybrid format, the conference focused on the theme “Status Quo No More: Building Peace in a Time of Rising Violent Conflict,” bringing together senior officials, thought leaders, policymakers and practitioners from around the globe to explore and tackle the challenges facing the peacebuilding community.

Amid a global rise in fragility and violence, including a deepening war in Ukraine and crisis in the Middle East, the peacebuilding community is navigating a dramatically evolving conflict landscape. New trends like artificial intelligence and environmental disruptions could cause large-scale shocks and violence. Meanwhile, a general decline in social cohesion and trust is complicating the resolution of violent conflicts. The rise of a wide array of new actors—both state and nonstate—is bringing forth a multipolar world, and new global fault lines are emerging. Despite these new challenges and shifts, the peacebuilding community has an opportunity to leverage scalable, evidence-based and locally-led solutions to prevent and reduce conflict drivers while helping to build more sustainable peace and resiliency.


Charting a way forward for the peacebuilding community will require reframing peacebuilding in ways that are actionable, practical and results-oriented. It will require more effectively and urgently building champions among communities of policymakers, business leaders, bilateral and multilateral donors, the nonprofit sector, and the broader public.

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Is America a Democracy or a Republic?

Is America a Democracy or a Republic?

From the Penn State McCourtney Institute for Democracy:

New Democracy Discourse Lesson Addresses an Age-Old Question

Is the United States a democracy or a republic? The answer to that question often varies depending on who you ask. We explore the differences in the newest episode of Democracy Discourse, our educational series on YouTube.

In this lesson, host Brandon Stover explores the definitions and distinctions between different types of democracy, including direct and representative democracies, as well as liberal and illiberal representative democracies.

We also discuss the concept of a republic and how it contrasts with monarchy. The video features insights from experts including Francis Fukuyama and provides a comprehensive overview of the principles of democracy and liberalism in the United States, as well as the impact of federalism.

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Primary Reform and Pivotal Voters

Primary Reform and Pivotal Voters

From the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers:

Primary Reform and Pivotal Voters: A discussion of research on how ideological purity gets translated into representation, the concept of the pivotal voter, and what’s on the horizon.

Join the National Association of Nonpartisan Reforms for a conversation with Sam Wang, Ph.D., from Princeton University, regarding his research on the impact of primary reform on electoral outcomes, how "pivotal voters" play into the dynamic, and what electoral reformers should keep in mind moving forward.

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Video: The dignity index

Video: The dignity index

UNITE is a national initiative to ease divisions, prevent violence, and solve problems. UNITE designed the Dignity Index, an eight-point scale that measures the level of contempt or dignity in a selected passage of speech. Lower scores (1-4) reflect a lack of dignity and the presence of contempt, with the lowest score (1) showing the most contempt. The higher scores (5-8) reflect language grounded in dignity, with the highest score (8) showing the most dignity.

In September 2022, a team from the University of Utah that included the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, the David Eccles School of Business, and the Hinckley Institute of Politics joined the project UNITE effort to pilot the Dignity Index in Utah. With a team of 22 student coders from politically and ideologically diverse backgrounds, the Utah pilot tested using the Dignity Index in coding passages in Utah political campaigns.

Video: How America's two-party doom loop is driving division

Video: How America's two-party doom loop is driving division

"We're in a doom loop of toxic politics," says political reform scholar Lee Drutman. In this new video from Unite America, Drutman's doom loop theory is explained and we unpack how the doom loop threatens the very fabric of our nation.

How did we get here? What are the impacts of the doom loop? And most importantly, how do we get out?