World-class journals: Norwegian peace researchers getting noticed

The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)’s international journals are among the best in the world in the field of international relations. The publications had record-high impact factors in 2009.

The Journal of Peace Research (JPR) and Security Dialogue (SD) were ranked numbers 3 and 10 respectively on the ISI Web of Science citation index for international relations. JPR is also in fifth place in the category political science.

Journal of Peace Research

The Journal of Peace Research was founded by Johan Galtung in 1964. It is firmly rooted within the quantitative tradition in social research, although it does also publish articles based on historical and anthropological methods. The journal has been edited by Nils Petter Gleditsch since 1983.

Security Dialogue

Founded by Marek Thee in 1970 under the name Bulletin of Peace Proposals, this journal originally focused on conflict resolution and the political consequences of peace research. J. Peter Burgess, who has been the editor of Security Dialogue since 2001, has steered the journal in a more theoretical direction, and it has carved out quite a niche for itself in the constructivist tradition in international politics.

Editors with close ties to the Research Council

The editor of JPS, Nils Petter Gleditsch, was chair of the Programme Committee for NFR’s programme The Multilateral System in the Field of Development for many years. In 2009, he was awarded the Research Council of Norway’s prize for outstanding research. Gleditsch has led a number of research projects supported by the Research Council.

The editor of SD, J. Peter Burgess, has also been involved in many projects supported by the Research Council of Norway. His most recent project Liberal Peace and the Ethics of Peacebuilding looks at some of the most famous peace-building processes in recent years from an ethical as opposed to political perspective.

Source: Research Council of Norway