Who decides war and peace in Gaza, and how much power does political leadership hold?

In this episode of Conflicts of Interest, Professor Clionadh Raleigh and Dr Caitriona Dowd examine the rise of the Board of Peace and ask whether global decision-making over conflict is being centralised, with Donald Trump taking the lead.

Using Gaza as a reference point, the conversation explores how current peace efforts are shaped by political leadership choices, imposed timelines, economic fixes, and elite deal-making, often sidelining justice, political consent, and local realities.

The episode places the Board of Peace within the broader weakening of United Nations-led diplomacy and asks what is lost when peace becomes a matter of executive decision-making rather than negotiated political process, and what this means for conflicts still unfolding.

President Trump said his New Years Resolution was "peace on earth" ... others suggest it's "world domination"

The US president told the New York Times that there is only one thing that can limit his global power: his own morality, adding that he does not need international law.

In this episode of Conflicts of Interest, Professor Clionadh Raleigh and Dr Caitriona Dowd unpack what it means when global power is framed as a personal choice rather than a political or legal constraint.

They explore the rapid and highly personalised use of US force — from Venezuela to threats directed at Nigeria, Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, and even Greenland. They examine what has changed in the way power is exercised, and what has disappeared: coalition-building, legal justification, and even the pretence of multilateral consent.

#Trump #GlobalPower #Venezuela #InternationalLaw #ConflictTrends

2025 marked a turning point in global conflict — not because violence suddenly appeared, but because it reached a scale, spread, and persistence that now feels like a new normal.

In this year-end episode of Conflicts of Interest, Prof. Clionadh Raleigh and Dr Caitriona Dowd look back at what 2025 revealed about political violence around the world.

Drawing on data and analysis from ACLED, they unpack where violence was most concentrated, how it evolved across regions, and why civilians faced unprecedented levels of risk.

Using ACLED’s global conflict index, we explain how violence is measured — including how dangerous, widespread, fragmented, and lethal conflicts have become — and why these indicators matter for understanding today’s security landscape. The picture that emerges is deeply concerning: more countries experiencing extreme violence, conflicts becoming harder to contain, and distinctions between war, criminal violence, and political unrest increasingly blurred.

This episode breaks down the key trends that defined 2025, challenges common assumptions about where and how violence occurs, and asks what these patterns mean as the world heads into 2026.

#GlobalConflict #PoliticalViolence #ConflictTrends #GlobalSecurity