Beyond Broadcast Interviews: United States Institute of Peace

Ivan Sigal (Photo by Joi)

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a nonprofit founded over 20 years ago, studies and supports peace. The organization focuses on conflict prevention, mediation, negotiation in conflict zones, and peace-building and stabilization. As part of this effort, the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace awards 8-12 senior fellowships to practitioners, scholars, policymakers, journalists, and other professionals so they can conduct research on conflict and peace while in residence at the Institute. Ivan Sigal, regional director of Internews Network, is currently a fellow studying “Old Media, New Media and Media Assistance in Conflict Prone Settings.” He recently answered some questions about the USIP and his fellowship at the Beyond Broadcast conference.

How does the budget of your organization compare to the budget of the Pentagon?

It’s tiny. USIP has an annual appropriation from the US government, usually around 30 million, and it has additional supplementary appropriations of something along the lines of 15 to 25 million. [The Pentagon’s budget for military spending in 2009 exceeds $500 billion ]. There’s not a lot of money in peace work.

Tell me about your work. And why are you here at this conference?

My focus is on how digital media technologies are changing how information is flowing in conflict zones. I’m specifically looking at fragile and weak states -- at the long-term political implications of a developing world rapidly becoming connected in all levels of society. Mainly, I’m following two trends: the decline of mass media as an authoritative source of information and the simultaneous rise of a larger communications field. Lots of activism movements are emerging from the futility of censorship, for example, in Kenya and China. We are watching how governments are trying to track and control and surveil -- let’s say in authoritarian regimes -- but even in this country.

What places are you studying?

Mostly South Asia, Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, India, Burma, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Sudan, China -- places where interesting things are happening; where there are intractable conflicts. I’m watching if access to information has any influence on those conflicts. I blog about it at http://ivonotes.wordpress.com/ and I’m writing a more formal paper as well.

If you have any one conclusion, what is it?

If in the 20th century and before, wars were fought in an information void…then in the 21st century, war will increasingly be fought in a context of information abundance, events survielled and captured and documented as they occur by combatants and citizens. Through World War II, most victims of war were soldiers, now most victims are civilians, a different kind of war -- it’s not armies clashing by night in the same way.

Related Links:

United States Institute of Peace: http://www.usip.org/

Ivan Sigal’s blog: http://ivonotes.wordpress.com/

Photo Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/joi/

Link to this page: http://www.independent-magazine.org/