Anna Jarstad

Professor at Department of Government; Faculty

E-mail:
anna.jarstad@statsvet.uu.se
Visiting address:
Östra Ågatan 19
753 22 Uppsala
Postal address:
Box 514
751 20 UPPSALA

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Professor at Uppsala University Conflicting Objectives Research Nexus (UUniCORN)

E-mail:
anna.jarstad@statsvet.uu.se
Visiting address:
MTC-huset, Dag Hammarskjölds väg 14B, 1 tr
752 37 Uppsala
Postal address:
Akademiska sjukhuset
751 85 Uppsala

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CV:
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ORCID:
0000-0001-8048-1868

Short presentation

Jarstad leads the international research network Varieties of Peace. Her research centers on the intersection of peacebuilding and democratization in multiethnic states and countries emerging from civil war. A key project, Relational Peace, seeks to define, characterize, and analyze the varieties of peace that develop after civil conflict. Jarstad has also conducted extensive research on power-sharing pacts where former combatants forming joint governments.

Keywords

  • Cyprus
  • democratization
  • power sharing
  • peace
  • post-war
  • UN
  • South Africa
  • Kosovo
  • Afghanistan
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • North Macedonia
  • New Zealand

Biography

Anna Jarstad is a Professor of Political Science with a specialization in International Relations at the Department of Government, Uppsala University. She is affiliated with UUniCORN (Uppsala University Conflicting Objectives Research Nexus) and leads the research network Varieties of Peace.

Jarstad was the founding chair of Peace Researchers in Sweden (PRIS) from 2016 to 2018 and is a member of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Her academic service includes membership in the Committee for Applications for Promotion to Associate Professor (Ledamot i fakultetens docenturnämnd) and participation in the Academic Senate.

She has received several major research grants and has supervised seven PhD students. Currently, she co-supervises all first-year PhD students (typically 4–6) together with Josefina Eriksson.

Jarstad has served as a reviewer for research applications submitted to the Swedish Research Council, the South African National Research Foundation, and the Research Council of Norway. She has also contributed as an expert in various policy forums, including yhe USIP expert-panel working group on Peacemaking in a Turbulent World (Washington, D.C., Democracy and Governance After COVID-19 at the Institute for Comparative and Regional Studies, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, and the EBA reference group (Expertgruppen för biståndsanalys) on Swedish support to electoral processes, reporting to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Sweden.

Research

Anna Jarstad is a co-editor of Relational Peace Practices (open access Manchester University Press, 2023), From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and the special issue Introducing Hybrid Peace Governance: Impact and Prospects of Liberal Peacebuilding (Global Governance, 2012). Her research explores the nexus of democratization and peacebuilding in war-torn societies, with fieldwork and case studies in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Kosovo, Macedonia, and South Africa.

Her current research includes the project Living in Contested Land, which examines peaceful coexistence amid unresolved territorial disputes, using the concept of Relational Peace to analyze the interactions among diverse actors in contested settings such as Cyprus.

She leads the international research network Varieties of Peace, which investigates how different forms of peace emerge after civil war. See the film on why we study peace here: Varieties of Peace. The project Varieties of Peace: A Relational Peace (RJ-funded, 2020–2022) developed a relational framework to better understand peace in contexts such as Cambodia, Myanmar/Burma, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. The team included Elisabeth Olivius, Nilanjana Premaratna, Johanna Söderström, and Malin Åkebo, and resulted in an open-access book published in 2023: Relational Peace Practices.

Jarstad also specializes in power-sharing as a form of conflict management and led the quantitative data project IMPACT with Desirée Nilsson and Ralph Sundberg.

Previous projects include Introducing Democracy from the Outside? which explored how international and local democratization efforts interact. This project supported the dissertation Statebuilding through Diaspora Recruitment? (2021) by Anna Ida Rock (formerly Norén), focusing on legitimacy in Somaliland and Liberia.

Jarstad has also researched political violence in South Africa, including the article “Towards Electoral Security: Experiences from KwaZulu-Natal” (Africa Spectrum, 2011, with Kristine Höglund). Another collaborative project, led by Louise Olsson, examined local ownership in development and peacebuilding efforts in Northern Afghanistan.

Media

Why do we study peace? Watch at  Varieties of peace

Anna Jarstad

Publications

Recent publications

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Articles in journal

Articles, review/survey

Books

  • Det hotade universitetet

    Karlsson, Christer; Ahlbäck Öberg, Shirin; Widmalm, Sten; Bennich-Björkman, Li et al.

    Dialogos Förlag, 2016

Chapters in book

Collections (editor)

Conference papers

Reports

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