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Opinion & Insights

April 20, 2021

How Do We Get to an Earth Without War?

OEF’s Executive Director and Chief Operating Office, Jon Bellish talks about OEF’s commitment to Relentless Empiricism as core to its belief in and support of iterative problem-solving and careful, analytical design. He discusses how OEF relies on evidence to cut through complexities in order to sol...

the important of using evidence to make decisions in peacebuilding

April 08, 2021

Why Do People Choose to Rebel?

Answering the question of why people rebel is central to understanding civil war. Research shows that civil wars and rebellion are neither driven by ancient hatreds between ethnic groups nor simply by opportunistic greed.

April 07, 2021

Is the World Getting More Peaceful?

This blog post briefly reviews the current state of research on armed conflict, discusses the predictors of peace, and addresses the opportunities for OEF, dedicated to fostering sustainable peace.

March 30, 2021

Building Community

Community work involves more than physical presence and specialized expertise. Join Oregon State University graduate student, Ashley Peiffer, in exploring what it means to build meaningful relationships that inspire community-led projects and how research with Secure Fisheries illuminates both perso...

March 18, 2021

Peacebuilding Requires a Coordinated Effort

OEF’s goal is ultimately the elimination of war. In order to achieve this admittedly lofty goal, we need to have a working theory of the causes of war and how we can help to disrupt them. Fortunately, there is a large body of research in “peace science” and, more broadly, political science. In devel...

The Difficulty of Peacebuilding in Syria

March 12, 2021

African Actors Leading the Way

Southern African regions are increasingly shaping global norms around security. A recent blog series by OEF Research explores these.

March 11, 2021

Secure Fisheries 2020 Year in Review

Secure Fisheries is taking a look back at the challenges, adaptations, and accomplishments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

February 26, 2021

Alternative Facts and Unconscious Bias: How We are Less Rational than We Think

This is really not the time for alternative facts. Serious global challenges—climate change, war and refugees, growing authoritarianism—require thoughtful responses based on data and evidence. But truth seems to be malleable and alternative facts compete with actual facts. And people with confli...

Marcel Arsenault

Conor Seyle

February 24, 2021

Balancing long-term thinking, short-term metrics, and flexible project planning

Over the past several decades, a number of different critiques of nonprofit work have emerged. Inevitably, these critiques have a strong basis — they identify real and specific issues in how nonprofits work — but collectively they may present a problem by calling for approaches that aren’t easily r...

February 04, 2021

A Deep-Dive into OEF's Theory of Peace

Peacebuilding organizations like OEF face a surprising problem: deciding what we mean by peace. In developing our theories of impact and articulating how we do our work, we start with our end goal: the elimination of war and large-scale organized political violence.

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