Terrence Lyons

Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tigray: A Powder Keg in the Horn of Africa | International Crisis Group The risk of hostilities involving Ethiopia, its northernmost Tigray region and its neighbour Eritrea remains high three years after the last major war in the area. African states and outside powers sh...

🔥Risk of descending into a new conflict in an already volatile Horn of Africa. While all sides appear wary of igniting a new war, simmering grievances, overblown rhetoric and military preparations indicate core actors are readying themselves for that eventuality.

www.crisisgroup.org/brf/africa/e...

Peace with Adjectives: Conceptual Fragmentation or Conceptual Innovation? Abstract. What strategies can be employed to conceptualize peace? In recent years, scholars have introduced an impressive array of “peace with adjectives”

Does 'peace' mean the same everywhere, or is it fragmenting into adjectives? This piece by @spbmartel.bsky.social, Jarstad, Olivius & @jsoderstrom.bsky.social debates if qualifiers like 'liberal' or 'sustainable' signal innovation or conceptual chaos in peacebuilding.

doi.org/10.1093/isr/...

🎙️ In our new podcast, produced in collaboration with the @jodemocracy.bsky.social, Galo Mayorga and @kaimthaler.bsky.social discuss how state weakness, militarized security policies, and public fear are reshaping Ecuador’s democracy. 🇪🇨🇪🇨

🎧 Listen to it now:
👉 tinyurl.com/y5zyn6jp

POLICY BRIEFING | RETHINKING AID IN SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN

This brief is drawn from a 2025 Kampala convening with Sudanese and South Sudanese civil society. As international aid shrinks, frontline actors warn of worsening food insecurity, mass displacement and collapsing services.

🧵1/2

SAVE THE DATE | Join EWNET for an online webinar exploring how #Ethiopia has been written into global knowledge and how Ethiopian thinkers have written the world from Ethiopia.

Fri 30 Jan 2026| 13:30 Cambridge | 15:30 EAT

Register: tinyurl.com/3kbm7xuj

Book Review (12/25): The Second Emancipation Explorations in African leadership

Book Review:

The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide, by @hofrench.bsky.social >> www.africanistperspective.com/p/book-revie...

On Saturday 6 December, RVI and the Sudan Norway Academic Collaboration hosted Sudanese researchers for a discussion on why five decades of peace initiatives have struggled to deliver stability in #Sudan and what causes agreements to falter in practice. 🧵1/2

The ‘Wolqayt question’ from c. 2015 to the Tigray war: agrarian claims in Amhara nationalism The emergence of Amhara nationalism as a central political trend in Ethiopia can be dated to 2016. It soon gained considerable audience within the Amhara region and beyond. This article analyses a ...

The ‘Wolqayt question’ from c. 2015 to the Tigray war: agrarian claims in Amhara nationalism

Latest articles in JEAS:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The Jervis Forum Roundtable 17-11 on Jarstad, et al, eds., Relational Peace Practices H-Diplo | Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum Roundtable Review 17-11 Anna Jarstad, Johanna Söderström, and Malin Åkebo, eds., Relational Peace Practices. Manchester University Press…

Great to see this roundtable and reviews out! Looking forward to more continued conversations around peace research’s way forward!
With M Åkebo and A Jarstad
Thanks to @h-diplo.bsky.social @tlyons.bsky.social @lkriesberg.bsky.social @emmamurphy.bsky.social Paul Diehl
issforum.org/roundtables/...

The Risk of a New Ethiopian-Eritrean War Is Growing Changing dynamics in Tigray could erode the current balance of uncertainty.

New essay in Foreign Policy with Abel Abate D. on Eritrea-Ethiopia tensions. It covers the sources of mutual restraint thus far; some of the factors that are eroding this delicate balance; and what can be done to avert another war the Horn of Africa cannot afford.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/10/21/e...

National Guard collects unfavorable public input on D.C. deployment Internal documents reviewed by The Post reveal, with rare candor, how domestic missions rooted in politics risk damaging Americans’ trust in the military.

WaPo exclusive: The National Guard, in measuring public sentiment about Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C., has internally assessed that its mission is perceived as “leveraging fear,” driving a “wedge between citizens and the military.” www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

The Resistance Is Inevitable.

We’re sick & tired of ICE & FBI agents profiling, harassing, & violently arresting our neighbors.

#wearealldc

Incredible turnout in DC yesterday, including a strong AAUP contingent.

@aaupmason.bsky.social
@gwaaup.bsky.social
@afthighered.bsky.social

Thousands march to the White House united in our demand. We want federal forces out of DC Now!! Free DC! Free DC! #WeAreAllDC #FreeDC

Devex Newswire: Is the global aid decline a blip or a deeper transformation? Is aid at a turning point? Plus, the next phase of Brazil’s plan to finance forest preservation.

Devex Newswire: Is the global aid decline a blip or a deeper transformation? www.devex.com/news/devex-n...

Here's what the third day of elementary school looked like in Mount Pleasant, Washington DC.

Did George Mason’s President Break the Law? Gregory Washington and his university sit at the center of a national debate on diversity and hiring.

Gregory Washington made faculty diversity a hallmark of his presidency at George Mason. Now, federal findings against the university spotlight a national dilemma: When is diversity hiring illegal?

George Mason Must Not Comply With the Government’s Demands (opinion) If the institution accepts the Office for Civil Rights’ findings, it will not just damage the college’s reputation, it will make all of higher education more vulnerable, says James Finkelstein.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

The Research Presentation as Storytelling: A Two-Day Virtual Workshop with Josef Woldense The goal is to help participants see research presentations not as a monologue of facts but as a compelling narrative. The exploration begins with the fundamentals: What is storytelling? What makes st...

Our member Josef Woldense is leading a two-day virtual workshop on August 26 and 27: The Research Presentation as Storytelling. Learn how to present your work through a compelling narrative.
More details available on our website: www.afpol.org/blog/the-res...

Authoritarians are attacking universities. Here's how it's going at one public school. I'm publicly documenting an event timeline to help bring order to the chaotic nature of events and help other schools plan the responses they are likely going to need.

I made an event timeline to try to make sense of all the federal overreach at @georgemasonu.bsky.social and whoo boy. When you lay it out like this, the executive over reach comes into focus. open.substack.com/pub/misofact...

The Big Ten Rises Up Against Trump The press acts as if “higher education” = Harvard. But a more interesting and gutsier stand is being taken in the heartland by schools that have a lot more going for them than football.

I wrote about the Big Ten’s superb power plays.

The Big Ten Rises UpAgainst Trump newrepublic.com/article/1983... via @newrepublic.com

Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation

Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

Opinion | The Plot to Oust the President of George Mason University This campaign is not about policy. It’s about power.

www.chronicle.com/article/the-...?
@aaup @aaupmason.bsky.social

DOJ opens 3rd probe of GMU in 3 weeks - Virginia Business The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a new investigation of George Mason University, the third federal probe of the Fairfax County university opened in July.

DOJ opens 3rd probe of GMU in 3 weeks - VA Business virginiabusiness.com/doj-gmu-inve...

This is ideological lawfare.

“Eric Sell…who joined the DOJ as counsel in April…previously was associate litigation counsel for the Center for American Liberty, a conservative nonprofit Dhillon helped found.”

We stand united against these attacks on our university.

We will fight for the independence of George Mason University and every other public college and university in the Commonwealth.

#DefendHigherEd #DefendGeorgeMason

Students, faculty, and lawmakers rally behind GMU amid Trump administration civil rights probe • Virginia Mercury When student Hanaan Kazia first heard about the federal civil rights probe into George Mason University, she wasn’t surprised. But the junior political science major and member of the school’s Politic...

Students, faculty, and lawmakers rally behind GMU amid Trump administration civil rights probe virginiamercury.com/2025/07/16/s...

George Mason Is the Latest University Under Fire From Trump. Its President Fears an “Orchestrated” Campaign. When university president Gregory Washington received notice that the Trump administration had opened an investigation into complaints of antisemitism, he was “perplexed.” But there are signs it may…

NEW: When university president Gregory Washington received notice that the Trump administration had opened an investigation into complaints of antisemitism, he was “perplexed.”

But there are signs it may be part of a coordinated campaign to oust him.

📢 Call for Papers
WORKSHOP: Gender, Peace, and Security: Resistance and Resilience

Nairobi, 1-3 December, hosted by British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) with @rvinews.bsky.social

➡️ Application deadline 13 August!

@statsvitenskap.bsky.social
#resilience #gender #climate #peacebuilding

Let’s call it what it is — UVA President Jim Ryan’s forced resignation is an attack on all of our public higher education institutions.

Opinion | Parsing ICE’s mixed-up, hard-to-believe assault claims ICE officials keep touting a 413 percent increase in assaults on officers to justify officers masking their identities.

I asked ICE where the “413% increase in assaults” justification for its officers using masks came from. They didn’t answer. So I dug into it, and what I found … did not boost their argument.
Gift link: wapo.st/4l7a1ch

Thrilled (and slightly terrified) that the page proofs are here. My book is coming out next year @mitpress.bsky.social

#PeaceInfrastructuresBook