This year’s Ernst-Otto Czempiel Award goes to “Peace and the Politics of Memory.” Drawing on five case studies, the monograph examines how the politics of memory affects peace in societies shaped by a violent past. The award honors a five-member international team of scholars for the best monograph in the field of peace research from 2023 to 2025: Johanna Mannergren, Annika Björkdahl, Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Stefanie Kappler, and Timothy Williams.
Their monograph, published in 2024, examines how memory politics contributes to the quality of peace in so-called post-conflict societies. To this end, the authors combine insights from peace and memory studies within a theoretical framework that focuses on the interplay of places, narratives, agency, and events in the social construction of memory. Using this framework, the authors examine and compare so-called “mnemonic formations” in Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, South Africa, and Cambodia through five comprehensive empirical case studies. They argue that the quality of peace depends on the extent to which memories of war – in all their diversity – are publicly visible and, at the same time, intertwined with one another.
The jury, comprising Charlotte Dany, Eva Senghaas-Knobloch, and Jonas Wolff, emphasizes both the originality and scope of the theoretical framework developed, as well as the practical relevance of the study for peace policy. According to jury member Eva Senghaas-Knobloch, this is evident “in the detailed portrayal of case-specific public mnemonic formations at the end of civil wars.” Whether the end of armed conflict can be transformed into a process leading to sustainable peace, she argues, depends on “whether it is possible, within a previously fractured political community, to incorporate all groups affected by the war – with their specific needs – into public memory in such a way that they feel their dignity is recognized.”
With the Ernst-Otto-Czempiel Award, PRIF honors the best monograph in the field of peace research from the preceding two to three years. The prize has been awarded since 2008 and is endowed with 5,000 euros. It is named after Ernst-Otto Czempiel (1927–2017), co-founder and long-time director of the PRIF and one of the leading voices in international peace research. Past recipients include Roger Mac Ginty, Kerstin von Lingen, and Simon Koschut, among others. The 2026 Ernst-OttoCzempiel Award will be awarded on March 3, 2027, in Frankfurt am Main.
About the book: Mannergren, J., Björkdahl, A., Buckley-Zistel, S., Kappler, S., & Williams, T. (2024). Peace and the Politics of Memory. Manchester University Press. ISBN: 9781526178312
Open Access: Link
To the press release