Can you help shape our future priorities? Take a five minute survey now. Survey closes on 8 July.

Conflict and Violence

Our work provides a nuanced and realistic understanding of the relationship between violence, conflict, security and development. It aims to help policymakers, practitioners and citizens to develop policies and practices that strengthen people’s efforts to secure their own lives and livelihoods and improve the functioning of political institutions responsible for security and the management and prevention of conflict, and for the development of peace.

We examine the multiple layers and contexts in which violence manifests – from household to state and global level – and pinpoint the links and overlaps between these layers. This includes exploring the nature of, and responses to conflict and violence in rapidly expanding urban areas.  We have a done pioneering work on the dynamics of micro-level conflict, violence and development as well as on citizen action in violent contexts. Our research on gender, men and masculinities and gender-based violence has provided new insights on how to change attitudes, norms and behaviours for equality, peace and justice.

Another focal area is the dynamics of policy processes around conflict, violence and security examining the key framing and narratives. We explore non-traditional forms of security, especially linked to water, energy, food and health as well as post conflict and state building issues affecting service delivery and livelihoods, and are also developing new participatory approaches to peacebuilding. 

People

Patricia Justino

Professorial Fellow

Rebecca Mitchell

Postgraduate Researcher and Programme Manager

Gauthier Marchais

Research Fellow

Jeremy Allouche

Professorial Fellow

Jeremy Lind

Professorial Fellow

Juan Carlos Muñoz-Mora

Post Doctoral Researcher

Marinella Leone

Research Fellow

Robin Luckham

Emeritus Fellow

Programmes and centres

Recent work

Filter results by

Showing 769–780 of 15404 results

Opinion

The politics of Zimbabwe’s land reform: winners and losers

The political debates about the rights and wrongs of Zimbabwe’s land reform continue to occupy many. The tired, old obsession about how the land was taken and the associated focus on so-called ‘cronies’ persists, despite much evidence to suggest that the process was highly varied and...

18 March 2024

Opinion

The gendered burden of care in Sri Lanka’s polycrisis

For women in working-class poor settlements in Colombo, since Covid-19, it seems that crises have kept on coming with no respite. At the height of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis in 2022 when food inflation reached 90% the shocks were far from over. Electricity tariff rates were revised and...

18 March 2024

Opinion

The sanitation circular economy - rhetoric vs. reality

Sanitation remains one of the most off-track Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with 3.4 billion people, about 46 percent of the world’s population, still without access to safe sanitation facilities. Approaches such as Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) have helped shift countries...

Deepa Joshi & 2 others

18 March 2024

Opinion

What happened to the global land grab?

In 2011, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) hosted a major conference on land grabbing to take stock of the impacts across the world. The event was convened by the recently formed Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI), which involved IDS through the Future Agricultures Consortium and the...

15 March 2024

News

Feminist recommendations: a list by gender students

Within the context of International Women’s Day and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 68 event, the IDS MA in Gender and Development (MAGAD) 2023 – 2024 cohort has curated a list of informative and inspiring feminist resources.   The MAGAD students recognise the transformative...

13 March 2024

Brief

Maximizing impact: The Intersection of Social Protection and Resilience

WFP Social Protection & Resilience Policy Brief

This brief explores the relationship between social protection and resilience, aiming to clarify conceptual linkages and contribute to WFP’s effective positioning and contribution within this space. This brief explores the complementary and interconnected roles that social protection and...

13 March 2024

News

Gender progressives must step up against the ‘anti-gender juggernaut’

Philanthropists must step up their funding for gender and women’s rights activists and organisations, against a well-organised anti-gender movement rolling back rights of women and LGBTQ+ people globally, worth $1bn in the USA alone and growing across Europe, warns a new report. The new...

12 March 2024

Why learn with us.

In an extraordinary time of challenge and change, we use more than 50 years of expertise to transform development approaches that create more equitable and sustainable futures. The work you do with us will help make progressive change towards universal development; to build and connect solidarities for collective action, locally and globally. The University of Sussex has been ranked 1st in the world for Development Studies for the past five years (QS World University Rankings by Subject).

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.