Activists’ Stra­tegies for Coping with Technology-Facilitated Violence in the Glo­bal South

Guntrum, Laura/Reuter, Christian (2025): Activists’ Stra­tegies for Coping with Technology-Facilitated Vio­lence in the Global South, in: ACM Trans­actions on Computer-Human Inter­action (TOCHI), 32: 6, 1–38, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3762811.

This ar­ticle shows how acti­vists from seven coun­tries in the Global South develop situated coping and protection strate­gies in res­ponse to tech­nology-facili­tated vio­lence. Coping mecha­nisms and res­ponses ranged from self-censorship and with­drawal to various forms of resis­tance, in­cluding the adop­tion of selec­tive, low-threshold digital security practi­ces such as encryp­tion. Activists’ digital security beha­viors often di­verged from universa­lized IT security recommenda­tions, under­scoring the impor­tance of situa­ting protec­tion strate­gies within activists’ specific threat models and lived con­texts. 

Radical Climate Move­ments – Is the Hype about “Eco­terrorism” Analogy, Warning or Propa­ganda? 

Lederer, Markus/Lasso Mena, Verena/Marquardt, Jens/Richter, Timo/Schoppek, Dorothea Elena (2024): Radical Cli­mate Movements – Is the Hype about “Eco­terrorism” Analogy, Warning or Propa­ganda?, in: Frontiers in Political Science 6/2024, 1–11, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2024.1421523.

The Bom­bing of Hospitals and Rebel Respon­ses in Civil War. Evi­dence from Syria

Schwab, Regine/Krause, Werner/Massoud, Samer (2025): The Bom­bing of Hospitals and Rebel Respon­ses in Civil War. Evi­dence from Syria, in: Jour­nal of Conflict Reso­lution, online first. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027251407077. 

This publi­cation re­searches an in­creasingly pro­minent form of politi­cal vio­lence, the tar­geting of civilian infra­structure, and its effects on local vio­lence dy­namics. Con­cretely, the paper shows that the tar­geting of medical fa­cilities by pro-govern­ment forces in the Syrian civil war leads to in­creased rebel vio­lence rather than suppressing resis­tance.

The rules-based international order will not survive if its institutions only work in powerful states’ interests

Christian, Ben/Speyer, Johanna/Zimmermann, Lisbeth (2024): The rules-based international order will not survive if its institutions only work in powerful states’ interests, LSE Blog, 11.12.2024.  

The current inter­national order is in crisis, but what ac­tion to take to add­ress this is hotly de­bated. Coun­tering a sugges­tion to reform global insti­tutions by giv­ing more po­wer to al­ready power­ful states, this blog post argues that this path would deepen the exis­ting crisis: The rules-based inter­national order which rests on multi­lateral cooperation will fail if its insti­tutions are re­formed to work even more in the inte­rest of power­ful sta­tes. 

Multi-normativity and Multi-level Governance: Fresh Perspectives on the Strengthening of Norms against Chemical and Biological Weapons

Marauhn, Thilo (2025): Multi-normativity and Multi-level Governance: Fresh Perspectives on the Strengthening of Norms against Chemical and Biological Weapons, in: Barry de Vries (ed.), Chemical and Biological Weapons, Leiden, Niederlande: Brill | Nijhoff, 1–12, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004739192_002. 

The bans on chemical and bi­ological weapons are founda­tional to global dis­armament and inter­national security. However, these re­gimes are under in­creasing strain due to recent vio­lations and broa­der insti­tutional challenges. This book intro­duction re­flects on two con­cepts helpful to ex­plain the complex­ities of multi­lateral regu­lations: the estab­lished no­tion of multi-level gover­nance and the mo­re recent no­tion of multi-norma­tivity.

Transitioning Guerrillas: An Analysis of the Internal Cohesion of the Former FARC in their Transition from War to Democracy

Acuña, Diana C./Quishpe, Rafael C./Salazar, Mónica A./Ugarriza, Juan E. (2023): Transitioning Guerrillas: An Analysis of the Internal Cohesion of the Former FARC in their Transition from War to Democracy, in: Latin American Politics and Society, 66: 3, 79–106, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/lap.2023.37. 

Ex-rebel politi­cal parties often e­merge after peace accords but fre­quently fragment and dis­appear, increasing the risk of re­newed political vio­lence. Using quanti­tative data on former FARC guerrillas in Colom­bia who joined a newly founded legal po­litical party, the authors' findings suggest that suppor­ting organi­zational reengi­neering efforts among for­mer rebels – with a focus on cohesion – can miti­gate the negative conse­quences of rebel party collapse.

ReflectiÖns on 200 Years of the Mon­roe Doctrine

Scarfi, Juan Pablo/Simon, Hendrik (2023): Re­flectiÖns on 200 Years of the Mon­roe Doctrine, Völkerrechts­blog, 18.12.2023, DOI: 10.17176/20231218-111106-0.

What does the Mon­roe Doctrine – or perhaps better: the multiple Monroe Doc­trines since 1823 – actually stand for to­day? How can we look back on it 200 years after its first appea­rance? In this blog post, authors build on discussions of a TraCe conference on the Monroe Doctrine in Frankfurt, December 2023.

This re­search agenda will be pur­sued further in a forth­coming edited volume on the history, inter­pretation, and legacy of the Monroe Doc­trine, edited by Raphaël Cahen, León Castellanos-Jankiewicz, and Hendrik Simon.

Special Issue: Dis­playing and Processing Poli­tical Violence in Museum Spa­ces

Fuhrmann, Larissa-Diana/Mannitz, Sabine (2025) (Hrsg.): Special Issue: Dis­playing and Processing Political Vio­lence in Museum Spa­ces, in: Cultural Dyna­mics, 37: 1–2, DOI: 10.1177/09213740251323352. 

With contri­butions by: de Wolff, Kaya/Cabral Lopes, Rebeca/Fuhrmann, Larissa-Diana/Mannitz, Sabine/Kopp, Rita Theresa/Oettler, Anika/Pérez Benavides/Amada Carolina, et al. 

This issue of the jour­nal Cultural Dynamics brings together contri­butions by scholars from PRIF, Goethe Uni­versity, and the University of Mar­burg. Their research on the cultural memory of poli­tical violence is focused here in particular on inter­pretive frameworks through which museums communi­cate these histories to a broader public. The special issue was pre­ceded by a highly successful and very well-attended work­shop – also involving colleagues beyond TraCe – held in the context of the 2023 DGSKA Congress.

The Ova­herero and Nama People’s Struggle for Resto­rative Justice: An Activist-Scholar Lens

De Wolff, Kaya/Nguherimo, Jephta (2025): The Ova­herero and Nama People’s Struggle for Resto­rative Justice: An Activist-Scholar Lens, in: Jour­nal of Genocide Re­search, 1–18, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2025.2559463. 

This article ex­plores the ongoing struggle of the Ova­herero and Nama struggle to obtain an apo­logy and reparations for the colonial geno­cide committed by German troops in 1904 to 1908 in Nami­bia. By co-publishing this article in tandem as a Ger­man academic scholar and a Namibian repa­ration activist, the authors move from an extrac­tivist practice of scholar­ship to a form of mutually beneficial know­ledge production. With support of TraCe members Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Sabine Mannitz and Dirk Moses, this ar­ticle is the first to be pub­lished in a series of three. The series was produced as part of Nguherimo's TraCe visiting fellow­ship at Goethe University Frankfurt. 

(Un)Sichtbarkeit von Gewalt

Ahlheim, Hannah/Cramer, Tina/Fuhrmann, Larissa-Diana/Guntrum, Laura/Ismail, Nadia/Mannitz, Sabine/Marauhn, Thilo/Lasso Mena, Verena/Oettler, Anika/Schwab, Regine/Spittler, Sara-Luise/Wolff, Jonas (2025): (Un)Sichtbarkeit von Ge­walt, Frankfurt/Main, TraCe Wor­king Paper No. 6, DOI: 10.48809/PRIFTraCeWP2506.

What mecha­nisms determine the visibility or in­visibility of violence? Written in the context of the exhibition “(In)Visibility of Violence” (KUNSTHALLE GIESSEN, 2025), this TraCe Working Paper exa­mines forms, geographical contexts, and both historical and contem­porary con­ditions of violence. The paper is a prime example for TraCe’s know­ledge transfer: It connects artistic and aca­demic perspec­tives on vio­lence and makes them accessible to a non-academic au­dience through numerous examples and pictures.