Peace Studies

Organizations and Research Resources

Peace and Conflict Resolution Professional Organizations

  • Association for Conflict Resolution
    The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) is a professional organization dedicated to enhancing the practice and public understanding of conflict resolution. ACR represents and serves a diverse national and international audience that includes more than 6,000 mediators, arbitrators, facilitators, educators, and others involved in the field of conflict resolution and collaborative decision-making.
  • Global Nonviolent Action Database
    Provides free access to information about hundreds of cases of nonviolent learning and for citizen action. They research campaigns that have reached a point of completion. The cases are drawn from all continents and most countries. People are shown struggling for human rights, economic justice, democracy, national and ethnic identity, environmental sustainability, and peace.
  • Peace and Justice Studies Association
    PJSA is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing together academics, K-12 teachers and grassroots activists to explore alternatives to violence and share visions and strategies for peacebuilding, social justice, and social change. PJSA also serves as a professional association for scholars in the field of peace and conflict resolution studies.
  • International Peace Research Association Foundation
    Founded in 1964, IPRA is a scholarly association with links to hundreds of institutions and five regional institutions of its own. It is a member of the International Social Science Council and publishes the International Journal of Peace Studies.
  • H-Peace Discussion Network
    H-Peace is an international scholarly network that seeks to broaden understanding about historical and contemporary peace and justice concerns. An affiliate of the Peace History Society, H-Peace provides an easy way to stay informed of the latest developments in Peace History and Peace Studies, and to communicate with other scholars working and teaching in these fields.
  • Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace
    The Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace is an online scholarly journal that publishes articles regarding the role of religion in conflict and peacebuilding. The journal is a project of the Plowshares peace studies collaborative of Earlham, Goshen and Manchester Colleges funded by Lilly Endowment Inc.
  • Justice, Peace & Reconciliation
    The prestigious South African Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation website provides information on justice, peace and reconciliation efforts in countries throughout the world.

Volunteer and Grassroots Peace Organizations

Local Organizations:
  • Center for Service-Learning & Social Change
    This new St. Cloud center “empowers and inspires youth of diverse backgrounds–and those who work with youth–to be proactive agents of change in their communities and in the world.”
  • Peace organizations in Minnesota
National Organizations:
  • Campus Compact
    Campus compact is a coalition of over 900 college and university presidents who desire to encourage community service, citizenship skills, and public integration into teaching and research as a part of higher education.
  • Idealist.org: Action without border
    A website that aims to connect people through a large collection of resources. Visitors can search for peace organizations.
  • Pax Christi USA
    The national Catholic peace movement, striving to create a world that reflects the Peace of Christ by exploring, articulating, and witnessing to the call of Christian nonviolence.
  • Peace Action
    The nations largest grassroots peace group. They strive to empower people to change the world through practical, positive alternatives for peace.
  • United For Peace and Justice
    A coalition of over 650 groups who oppose the governments policy of permanent warfare and empire building. This organization takes a proactive stance on social and political change.

Peace and Conflict Resolution Research Resources

  • International Alert
    International Alert is an independent peacebuilding organization that works in over 20 countries and territories around the world. They address issues of violent conflict with the dual approach of working directly with affected people as well as at government, EU and UN levels to shape both policy and practice in building sustainable peace.
  • U.S. Institute of Peace
    The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent international conflicts, promote post-conflict stability and democratic transformations, and increase peacebuilding capacity, tools, and intellectual capital worldwide. Its website includes many essays, publications, and briefings.
  • Human Rights Watch
    Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. Found on its website are its extensive publications on the state of human rights in various nations around the world.
  • Amnesty International
    Founded in 1961, Amnesty International is a Nobel Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with over 1.8 million members worldwide. On its website, above the multiple opportunities for engagement, are many statements on its findings about international human rights abuses, including its annual report.
  • International Center for Nonviolent Conflict
    The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict is an independent, non-profit, educational foundation that develops and encourages the study and use of civilian-based, nonmilitary strategies to establish and defend human rights, democracy and justice worldwide. Its site includes its works on nonviolent strategies and movements.
  • Albert Einstein Institution [strategic nonviolence]
    The Albert Einstein Institution is a nonprofit organization advancing the study and use of strategic nonviolent action in conflicts throughout the world. Its goals are to understand the dynamics of nonviolent action in conflicts, to explore its policy potential, and to communicate this through print and other media, translations, conferences, consultations, and workshops.
  • Freedom House Special Report on Nonviolent Movements: From Civic Resistance to Durable Democracy
    Freedom House, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization, which calls itself "a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world," published this report in 2005.
  • INCORE: International Conflict Research
    A joint project of the United Nations University and the University of Ulster its research is largely focused on the Northern Ireland conflict but includes a number of publications of a more broad interest.
  • Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies
    An independent think-tank devoted to studying the security issues of South Asia. It's site includes many articles and publications on India and Pakistan as well as the compounding forces of the U.S. and China.
  • Conciliation Resources
    Works in partnership with local and international civil society groups to prevent violence, promote justice and transform conflicts into opportunities for peace and development. It's site chronicles this work which ranges from Caucasus to Fiji, and various locales in Africa.
  • Studies of Peaceful Societies
    Peaceful societies are contemporary groups of people who effectively foster interpersonal harmony and who rarely permit violence or warfare to interfere with their lives. This website serves to introduce these societies to students, peace activists, scholars and citizens who are interested in the conditions that promote peacefulness.
  • Life and Peace Institute
    The Life & Peace Institute (LPI) is an international and ecumenical centre of research on and action for peace and justice. Our aim is to further the causes of justice, peace and reconciliation through a combination of research action and conflict transformation.
  • Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
    SIPRI conducts research on questions of conflict and cooperation of importance for international peace and security, with the aim of contributing to an understanding of the conditions for peaceful solutions of international conflicts and for a stable peace. Its numerous projects and publications are available online.
  • Frankfurt Peace Research Institute
    The Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) was founded in 1970 by the government of the state of Hesse as an independent foundation with its work directed towards identifying the causes of violent international and internal conflicts, carrying out research into the conditions necessary for peace, understood as a process of decreasing violence and increasing justice, and spreading the concepts of peace.
  • Beyond Intractability
    Beyond Intractability is a free knowledge base on more constructive approaches to destructive conflict. The website contains a variety of educational resources that include case studies, articles on understanding conflict, intervention essays, and more.
  • Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Notre Dame
    The Kroc Institute conducts research, education, and outreach programs on the causes of violence and the conditions for sustainable peace and includes many publications and different studies.
  • Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland
    An interdisciplinary research center at the University of Maryland, CIDCM seeks to prevent and transform conflict, to understand the interplay between conflict and development, and to help societies create sustainable futures for themselves.
  • Peace and Collaborative Development Network
    Building Bridges, Networks and Expertise Across Sectors
  • The Social Change Career Helping Line
College of Saint Benedict
Saint John’s University

Jeffrey Anderson 
Peace Studies Department Chair
SJU Simons 122
320-363-3047

Brandie White
Department Coordinator
SJU Quad 355A
320-363-3552