One of the world’s leading peace researchers, Peter Wallensteen, joined the Kroc Institute faculty this fall as the Richard G. Starmann Sr. Research Professor of Peace Studies. Wallensteen’s inaugural address will be the keynote at a November conference on “Strategic Peacebuilding: The State of the Art,” which will mark the institute’s 20th anniversary.

The new chair is named in honor of a longtime friend of the institute. A member of the Kroc Institute Advisory Council since 2001, Richard Starmann has specialized in crisis management in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Pacific Basin for more than 25 years. As senior vice president of McDonald’s, he was in charge of worldwide communications and led the company’s global crisis management team from 1981 to 1998.

Professor Wallensteen will spend one semester each year in residence at Notre Dame, where he will consult and collaborate with Kroc faculty on institute research projects, supervise graduate students in peace studies, make a major presentation on research in progress, teach a graduate seminar, and offer a series of lectures to undergraduate students on the core concepts and methods of peace research.

He foresees linkages between his work at Uppsala and Kroc. “My ambition is to find connections between these two programs and research at the Kroc Institute — for instance, in the field of peace agreements and on sanctions.”

Wallensteen became the first holder of the Hammarskjöld chair in peace and conflict research in 1985, when Uppsala was recruiting its first Ph.D. candidates. The program grew into one of the best of its kind, known for tough competition for admittance (two to four students admitted each year) and for its focus on methodological strength. He arrives at the Kroc Institute as planning is under way for a peace studies doctoral program at the University of Notre Dame.

Wallensteen is the author of International Sanctions: Between Wars and Words, Understanding Conflict Resolution: Peace, War, and the Global System, and Making Targeted Sanctions Effective, among other titles. He has also led recent commissioned studies on the means of preventing genocide, international strategies for democracy, and the United Nation's post-conflict peacebuilding capacity. His research interests also include the durability of peace agreements, and the impact of preventative measures on the dynamics of
disputes and conflicts.