Research Program

PRIF’s basic academic research is guided by an over­arching topic, which is defined by a research program. These research programs are developed by PRIF’ Research Council and are adopted by the Board of Trustees upon recommen­dation of the Scientific Advisory Board.

Current Research Program

Past Research Programs

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From January 2024, PRIF will be breaking new ground with a new research program as a “living document”. The new research program presents itself as a framework that connects the fundamental mission of PRIF as a peace and conflict research institute, the current research agenda of the institute, as well as its core units and cross-cutting research areas. Unlike the temporally limited and thematically focused research programs of the past, the new research program is thematically broader and more flexible. It responds to the institute’s growth and the continuous expansion of the research agenda through new research topics, formats, and collaborations.

In addition to the thematic priorities covered by the five Research Departments, the current research program identifies five cross-cutting areas that are jointly addressed by the Research Departments:

  • Transformations of Political Violence
  • Challenges and Transformations of Political Rule
  • Radicalization and Social Cohesion
  • Conflict and Trust
  • Gender, Diversity and Conflict

PRIF Research Program


| 2023
Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (2023): PRIF Research Program.

Past Research Programs

Coercion and Peace (2018–2023)

In January 2018, PRIF started its work on the research program “Coercion and Peace“. In this context, the institute examined the role that the threat or app­lication of coercion plays in the estab­lish­ment, main­tenance and under­mining of peace.

The research program analysed the ambi­valent relation­ship between coercion and peace. On the one hand, coercion can be necessary for establish­ing and main­taining peace; on the other, it may under­mine peace. Generally speaking, coercion is in tension with a peaceful order that is meant to involve more than the absence of war.

In order to address this ambivalence, PRIF investigated whether and in what way different types of coercion that aim at en­forcing norms and political order succeed, and how this affects peace at the inter­national and intra­state level. The overall aim of new research program was to analyze how to achieve as much peace as possible with as little coercion as neces­sary.

Just Peace Governance (2011–2017)

While concluding the previous research program “Antinomies of Democratic Peace”, the HSFK began work on the research program “Just Peace Governance” in 2011. Under this title, the HSFK has brought together tensions between the three concepts that have always been of consider­able theoretical importance and praxeo­logical scope for peace and conflict research. As in the research program “Anti­nomies of Demo­cratic Peace”, the aim was to uncover the frictions and contra­dictions hidden in and between the concepts and to shed light on their incompatibili­ties and side effects. The aim was to find out under what conditions actors' implicit or explicit ideas of justice lead to violent conflicts and under what conditions they can form the basis for sustainable peace.

The research program “Just Peace Governance” focused on conflicts over justice and the question of how peace and justice can be realized equally. It was based on the assumption that although peace and justice are equal political values, they are often in competition and sometimes even in conflict. Some say, for example, that demands for justice must be limited after civil wars so that lasting peace can be achieved through recon­ciliation; others claim that peace must sometimes be broken in order to help justice achieve a break­through. The HSFK's research program understands Just Peace Governance as a form of political action that creates lasting peace by taking into account aspects of justice and the construc­tive handling of conflicts over justice.

In order to support this, the research projects in the four program areas – each with their own special focus – analyzed the extent to which conflicts are deter­mined by aspects of justice and which forms of gover­nance are suitable for the peaceful resolution of justice conflicts. The focus was on three forms of justice conflicts: 1. conflicts arising from the global power shift and the rise of “new powers”, 2. conflicts resulting from competing norms and ideas, and 3. conflicts arising from the develop­ment and trans­formation of governance institutions.

The overarching findings of the “Just Peace Governance” research program, which are presented in the volume “Justice and Peace: The Role of Justice Claims in International Cooperation and Conflict”, point to the following points, among others:

  • The questions of the meaning of justice per se and what it implies in a given situation are often central points of reference in political conflicts. Two dimensions of controversy are particularly common in such conflicts over justice: Which subjects of justice should be at the center (usually states/collectives or individuals) and which principle of justice should be applied in a situation (such as equality, equality of opportunity, or different responsibilities depending on the power or status of an actor)?
  • Competing claims to justice are never the only factors that drive political conflicts and violence, but they do drive conflicts via causal mechanisms linked to them and make their peaceful resolution more difficult. Actors who feel unfairly treated are less open to compromise and reconciliation agreements. A particular problem is that actors in conflicts over justice often see their own position as morally justified, while the opposing position is motivated purely by power politics and strategy. However, if different justice claims are given equal consideration, this increases the chances of a successful negotiation.
  • Dealing with conflicts over justice is important for the stability and effectiveness of institutions. Analogous to the findings of social psychology for individuals, research at PRIF shows that states are also more willing to accept distributive inequality if they judge the underlying procedures to be fair. This has important implications for the design of global governance in particular and underlines the relevance of regional institutions for the legitimization of global rules.
  • Contrary to widespread assumptions in the literature regarding the greater stability of a post-war order as a result of a clear victory for one party to the conflict, peace agreements with their often hard-negotiated compromises between the parties to the conflict guarantee a peace that is at least as stable as the implementation of the concerns of just one party to the conflict.

Beyond the substantial findings, PRIF's research program has succeeded in establishing an international network for justice research, ranging from political science and philosophy to neuroscience, and has been able to set new research impulses in peace and conflict research. At the same time, the research program was thematically aligned with the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders”. This made it possible to intensify the research cooperation with Goethe University Frankfurt.

Key publications

  • Justice and Peace
    | 2019
    Fehl, Caroline; Peters, Dirk; Wisotzki, Simone; Wolff, Jonas (2019): Justice and Peace. The role of justice claims in international cooperation and conflict, Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
  • Auf dem Weg zu Just Peace Governance
    | 2011
    Baumgart-Ochse, Claudia; Schörnig, Niklas; Wisotzki, Simone; Wolff, Jonas (2011): Auf dem Weg zu Just Peace Governance. Beiträge zum Auftakt des neuen Forschungsprogramms der HSFK, Studien der Hessischen Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, 15, Baden-Baden: Nomos.
    ISBN: 978-3-8329-7051-2

Antinomies of Democratic Peace (2000–2011)

The “democratic peace” theory is based on the observation that democracies hardly ever wage wars against one another. It is argued that this is due to the calculation of interests and the value orientation of the citizens of these states, and to the effects of democratic institutions. PRIF's former research program is committed to the democratic form of governance and accepts the basic premises of this theory. When one looks more closely at the evidence, however, contradictions start to appear which need to be examined and explained in more detail. It is true that democracies do not wage wars against each other, but they do engage in wars against undemocratic regimes, and they sometimes do this in particularly aggressive ways. In addition, democratization, the path leading to democratic peace, is often an especially violent process. And while international organizations can function as the institutional basis for peaceful cooperation, they also involve the risk of a loss of democratic control.

These and other contradictions which had attracted very little attention in the past have been the central concerns both of PRIF's basic research work and of the institute's policy advisory activities in the 2000.

„[T]he ‘Antinomies of Democratic Peace‘ project, an initiative undertaken by the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and led by Harald Müller […], represents the most sustained contribution to the development of a critical research programme through exploring the tensions, contradictions and ‘dark sides’ of the democratic peace. The PRIF project has resulted in a series of publications, including two important edited books: Democratic Wars: Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace (Geis et al. 2006) and The Militant Face of Democracy: Liberal Forces for Good (Geis et al. 2013), which explore the relationship between democracy and war ‘as the flipside of democratic peace’.”

Source: Christopher Hobson, The Rise of Democracy. Revolution, War and Transformations in International Politics since 1776, Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, pp. 24–25.

The core projects in the research program “Antinomies of Democratic Peace” dealt to a large extent with Western democracies and their international organizations. The research uncovered the lines of conflict that arise when Western political goals, especially value-based ones, clash with other actors, namely non-democracies and non-Western democracies. The importance of normative differences in “interest-based” policy fields was a striking finding that called for further investigation. At the same time, the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders” was applied for and approved, in which PRIF was involved with four Principal Investigators. In their joint work, the experts constructively examined approaches to normative liberal theory. In the process, it became clear how important conflicting normative claims, namely demands for justice, are for the resolution of conflicts. Such conflicts contain risks of violence, but also create opportunities for consensual settlements in addition to obstacles. The idea for the subsequent research program “Just Peace Governance” developed from these strands.

Key publications

  • The Militant Face of Democracy
    | 2013
    Geis, Anna; Müller, Harald; Schörnig, Niklas (2013): The Militant Face of Democracy. Liberal Forces for Good, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Publication
  • Der demokratische Unfrieden. Über das spannungsreiche Verhältnis zwischen Demokratie und innerer Gewalt
    | 2012
    Spanger, Hans-Joachim (2012): Der demokratische Unfrieden. Über das spannungsreiche Verhältnis zwischen Demokratie und innerer Gewalt. Studien der Hessischen Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung Bd. 16, Baden- Baden: Nomos.
    ISBN: 978-3-8329-7050-5
  • Schattenseiten des Demokratischen Friedens
    | 2007
    Geis, Anna; Müller, Harald; Wagner, Wolfgang (2007): Schattenseiten des Demokratischen Friedens. Zur Kritik einer Theorie liberaler Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, Studien der Hessischen Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung.
  • Democratic Wars
    | 2006
    Brock, Lothar; Geis, Anna; Müller, Harald (2006): Democratic Wars. Looking at the Dark Side of Democratic Peace, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.