Lisa Hultman

Short presentation

Professor of Peace and Conflict Research; Director of the Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament

My research is focused on the protection of civilians, including how the international community responds to atrocities through political, military, and judicial means, and the consequence of such interventions. I'm currently heading the project "Justifying War Crimes: What Explains Variations in Public Support for Violations of International Humanitarian Law" RJ project).

Biography

I am a professor of peace and conflict research. Most of my research revolves around two central themes: first, understanding violence against civilians and the dynamics of civil war violence; second, the response by the international community and the impact of various forms of interventions in addressing such violence.

I got my PhD in Peace and Conflict Research from Uppsala University in 2008 (docent in 2013; professor in 2021). After that, I spent one year as a research fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and two years as a researcher at the Swedish National Defence College. Since 2011, I am back at Uppsala University. Between 2018 and 2025, I served as the Deputy Head of Department. I am currently the Director of the Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmanent, at Uppsala University.

In 2014 I was appointed Wallenberg Academy Fellow, which has allowed me to build a research team around the theme of international intervention and protection of civilians. I have also developed a master-level course on this topic. From 2019, I was the holder of a Consolidator grant from the Swedish Research Council to conduct research on what factors determine international responses to atrocities.

I currently serve on the editorial boards of four journals: American Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and International Peacekeeping. Since 2024, I am a theme leader in the UK FCDO-funded program Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy (ReCIPE), hosted by the Centre for Economic Research Policy. I have formerly been a member of the council of the Peace Science Society (International) and the European Peace Science Society steering committee. Between 2015 and 2017 I served on the Swedish Research Council review panel for political science, peace and conflict, and media and communication; in 2017, I was the chair of the panel.

Research

Research themes

Here I try to summarize the most important themes in my research. For my complete list of publications, see separate heading below.

Much of my work revolves around the question of how international interventions influence the violence dynamics in civil wars, and in particular with regards to the protection of civilians. One central question is whether peacekeeping works, and under what conditions the UN can improve the security for the civilian population. Together with Jacob Kathman and Megan Shannon, I have argued that the impact of peacekeeping should be conceptualized and measured as the relative effectiveness in reducing violence – and that effectiveness depends on the capacity and constitution of peacekeeping missions. Our book Peacekeeping in the Midst of War was published with Oxford University Press (winner of APSA Conflict Processes Best Book Award 2020). A number of articles also address variations of this theme, including analysing spatial patterns of peacekeeping deployments and their local effectiveness, comparing UN and non-UN operations, assessing the effectiveness of peacekeeping in protecting civilians from sexual violence, using prediction methods to assess the local effectiveness of peacekeeping, using simulations to assess the global impact of various UN peacekeeping policies, and analysing violence against peacekeepers.

My other strand of research focuses on the determinants of interventions and aims to explains when, why, and how the international community responds to atrocities against civilians. Some of this work explores the impact of the protection norm on the deployment of peacekeeping operations in response to one-sided violence against civilians, the impact of the gendered protection agenda on peacekeeping operations in reaction to sexual violence, and maps the cross-cutting agendas of Protection of Civilians and Women, Peace, and Security. I have also conducted a survey experiment as a way of assessing public opinion in relation to the protection norm and support for international protection measures. I have extended this work to other international institutions and intervention measures, e.g. the conditions under which the International Criminal Court decides to examine a situation and how international organizations use sanctions to enforce protection norm.

My PhD dissertation engaged with the question why actors target civilians (e.g. exploring the role of battle losses in triggering violence, and a closer study of the strategic logic of the violence perpetrated by Renamo during the civil war in Mozambique. Some of my work has continued along this path, analysing ethnic ties between the civilian population and warring actors and the strategic use of violence to weaken the enemy.

Datasets:

1. The Geo-PKO Dataset
2. The Ethnic One-sided Violence dataset

Links to blog posts and popularized work:

1. Fjelde, Hanne, Sophia Hatz, Lisa Hultman, and Kathleen Klaus. ”Israels agerande i Gaza spelar Hamas i händerna.” DN Debatt, Dagens Nyheter, 8 November 2023.
2. Hultman, Lisa. “Unpacking how peacekeeping affects violence – what the data can tell us”. Techpops (100 Voices on Technology and Peace Operations), 8 January 2021: https://tech-blog.zif-berlin.org/unpacking-how-peacekeeping-affects-violence-what-data-can-tell-us
3. Hegre, Håvard, Lisa Hultman, Håvard Mokleiv Nygård. ”Norge bør fronte fredsbevarende operasjoner”, Dagens Næringsliv, 29 February 2020.
4. Hultman, Lisa. “Is the Responsibility to Protect Dead? The View from Libya”, Political Violence at a Glance, 10 February 2020: http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2020/02/10/is-the-responsibility-to-protect-dead-the-view-from-libya/
5. Hanne Fjelde, Lisa Hultman, and Desirée Nilsson. “The UN’s Defining Challenge: Peacekeeping and Protection of Civilians” Political Violence at a Glance, 24 October 2018.
6. Hegre, Håvard, Lisa Hultman, and Håvard Mokleiv Nygård. “U.N. Peacekeeping Really Can Be Effective. Here is How We Tabulated This.” Monkey Cage, Washington Post, 28 June 2018.
7. Brosché, Johan et al. “9 punkter för global fred.” Uppsala Nya Tidning, 25 October 2015.
8. Hegre, Håvard, Lisa Hultman, and Håvard Mokleiv Nygård. 2015. “Peacekeeping Works”. PRIO Conflict Trends 01/2015.
9. Fjelde Hanne and Lisa Hultman. “Ethnicity and Collective Targeting in Civil Wars.” Guest post at Political Violence at a Glance, 13 April 2015.
10. Hultman, Lisa. “Satsa på FN:s fredsbevarande operationer.” Post on web magazine Mänsklig säkerhet, 28 Sept 2015.
11. Hultman, Lisa. “Robust Peacekeeping: A Desirable Development?”, E-International Relations, 2 Sept 2014.
12. Hultman, Lisa Jacob Kathman and Megan Shannon. “UN Peacekeeping and Violence in Civil Wars”, guest post on the Early Warning Project Blog, 13 June 2014.