The Kroc Cast: Peace Studies Conversations

In this live episode of the Kroc Cast, Good Friday Agreement signatory Monica McWilliams shares a masterclass in resilience and political strategy. Drawing from her experience co-founding the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, McWilliams offers a candid look at what it takes to "mess up the pitch" and force a seat at a table dominated by "big beasts" and entrenched "dinosaurs." She explores the grueling "software" of peacebuilding—the work of decommissioning mental prejudices—and explains why peace must be "heated" simultaneously at the elite and grassroots levels. With wit and candor, McWilliams discusses the tactical use of humor against sexism, the vital influence of Nelson Mandela, and the delicate challenge of "tattooing a balloon" to ensure a peace process survives long after the signatures are dry. This episode was recorded live at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies' Strategic Peacebuilding Academy on "Peace Processes" in 2025.

How do we measure the success of a peace process? While international observers often look to legislative milestones and disarmament data, these metrics often miss the most critical element of lasting change: the slow, relational work of the people living through the transition. At the center of this effort is civil society—the community leaders and grassroots organizers who act as the ultimate stewards of peace, transforming high-level agreements into lived realities on the ground. In this episode of The Kroc Cast, Allison Kielhold sits down with Mariafernanda (Mafe) Burgos Ariza and Angela Lederach (Ph.D. '20) to challenge the traditional "fast-track" model of international peacebuilding. Using the ongoing implementation in Colombia as a lens, they explore how civil society movements sustain momentum during political uncertainty and delve into the concept of “slow peace”—a framework that prioritizes trust, ritual, and daily healing over bureaucratic deadlines.

In this urgent and timely episode of the Kroc Cast, we are joined by Kelsey Davenport (MA '11), Director of Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association. This conversation was recorded as a "massive armada" gathered in the Persian Gulf, and it now serves as a hauntingly prophetic analysis of the catastrophic military escalation that unfolded on February 28, 2026. Hours after "intense" nuclear negotiations in Geneva ended without a deal, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury (Roaring Lion), a joint military assault aimed at toppling the Iranian regime and "razing" its missile and nuclear infrastructure. With reports confirming the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and retaliatory strikes hitting U.S. bases across the Gulf, the region has entered the "devastating war" Davenport warned was nearly inevitable without a diplomatic off-ramp.

How can a global research tool become a localized "bridge" for peace? In this episode of the Kroc Cast, experts Madhav Joshi, Myla Liguoro, and Bishnu Sapkota join host Melinda Davis to discuss the evolution of PAM-Mindanao (PAM-M). The conversation highlights how a framework originally known for its global research has become a "scientific art of accompaniment" in the Bangsamoro peace process, fostering trust through a unique co-creation model between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The guests explore how evidence-based monitoring serves as a vital bridge between high-level negotiations and grassroots realities.

Peace implementation is a long, nonlinear journey that requires more than just technical oversight—it requires a human network rooted in trust. In this episode of The Kroc Cast, we go behind the scenes of the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM) to explore its historic responsibility: independently monitoring the 2016 Final Peace Accord in Colombia. Host Cristian Sáez Flórez is joined by the researchers and practitioners who bring this work to life through a unique partnership between the University of Notre Dame and the Colombian Barometer Initiative. This conversation dives into the delicate balance between measuring progress and respecting the lived realities of communities navigating the legacy of conflict. From technical innovations in transitional justice to the emotional dimensions of post-conflict work, our guests share how this binational collaboration turns high-level commitments into tangible change on the ground. The episode features Ángela María Ramírez Rincón, Executive Director of the Barometer Initiative in Colombia; Mateo Gómez Vásquez, Technical Research Leader; Natalia Restrepo Ortiz, Research Associate; and Carolina Serrano Idrovo, Research Associate for PAM at the Kroc Institute.

Are we facing the dusk or the dawn of peace processes and global peacebuilding efforts? In this episode of the Kroc Cast, renowned scholar-practitioner Dr. John Paul Lederach invites listeners to reflect on his half-century arc of experience in the field and challenges us to confront the core tensions of peacemaking in a time of crisis. This episode was recorded live at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies' Strategic Peacebuilding Academy on "Peace Processes" in 2025. You can access Dr. Lederach's full PowerPoint Presentation here.

We know you've been waiting—and we're thrilled to announce an all-new season of The Kroc Cast beginning November 2025. This season we're zeroing in on the most critical element of any peace effort: the peace agreements. We'll explore how signed documents transform into real change on the ground, guided by the Institute's globally renowned tool, the Peace Accords Matrix. Don't miss this season connecting global research with the local reality.

In this episode of The Kroc Cast, Josefina Echavarría Álvarez, director of the Peace Accords Matrix and the Legacy Project at the Kroc Institute, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, explores the power of Colombia’s Truth Commission Transmedia Platform and its relevance for peacebuilding worldwide. The conversation highlights how this innovative, multimedia archive preserves multiple voices and lived experiences of Colombia’s armed conflict while offering insights for societies grappling with the legacies of violence. Joining the discussion are two distinguished scholars working with the Legacy Project: Leigh Payne, Professor of Sociology and Latin America at the University of Oxford, whose extensive research on transitional justice spans Latin America and beyond, and Emma Murphy, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Keough-Naughton Institute and the Kroc Institute, whose work develops the concept of agonistic transitional justice as an alternative to liberal approaches. Together, they reflect on the possibilities and challenges of memory, contestation, and multiplicity in processes of truth-telling and reconciliation.

Art has long been a powerful tool for fostering understanding, reconciliation, and healing in conflict-affected societies. By transforming cultural, political, and ideological boundaries, artistic expression allows individuals to communicate, reflect, and envision new possibilities for coexistence. In this episode, Peace Policy guest editor Norbert Koppensteiner, Associate Teaching Professor of Peace Studies, joined the contributors of the issue to discuss the diverse ways that art contributes to peacebuilding, demonstrating its ability to cultivate empathy, challenge oppressive structures, and create spaces for dialogue. Contributors to this issue of Peace Policy include Alison Ribeiro de Menezes, a Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Warwick, UK; Vera Brandner, head of the NGO ipsum and a freelance scientist and lecturer; Jessica (Doe) Mehta, Ph.D. (Aniyunwiya/Cherokee Nation), a 2024-2025 Visiting Research Fellow at the Kroc Institute; and Paula Ditzel Facci, a dancing peace researcher and assistant professor of peacebuilding at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. Read all articles in this issue at peacepolicy.nd.edu.

Every year, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) hosts the SheLeads4Peace Summer School, a program dedicated to providing women peacebuilders the necessary skills to be a leader for peace as they transition from their education into their professional careers. For the past two years, the Kroc Institute has had the privilege of partnering with UNITAR to send a delegation of seven Notre Dame undergraduate women to Geneva to take part in this event. In this episode, Anna Van Overberghe, assistant director for Academic Administration and Undergraduate Studies, is joined by Mary Kate Cashman (BA '24), Erin Tutaj (BA '24), and Ella Ermshler (BA '25), three peace studies students who participated in the 2023 SheLeads4Peace Summer School this past August.

This episode is dedicated to our latest issue of Peace Policy, which focuses on the co-mingling of two existential crises of our time: the threat of nuclear war, and potential planetary destruction through climate change. Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies, serves as this year’s faculty editor of Peace Policy. She is joined by George A. Lopez, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies and the guest editor of this Peace Policy issue, for a conversation about essays from our expert contributors, ranging from environmental and nuclear risks in Ukraine, to Pope Francis, to climate change. Contributors to this issue of Peace Policy include Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; Drew Marcantonio (Ph.D. '21), Department of Management & Organization within the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, as well as a faculty fellow with the Kroc Institute, and Kristina Hook (Ph.D. '20), an assistant professor of Conflict Management with Kennesaw State University in Georgia; and Jerry Powers, director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the Kroc Institute and coordinator of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network. Read all articles in this issue at peacepolicy.nd.edu.

In this episode, Fr. Emmanuel Katongole, professor of theology and peace studies at the Kroc Institute, hosts a conversation with His Eminence Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja Archdiocese in Nigeria. Cardinal Onaiyekan, one of Africa's most prominent religious peacebuilders, reflects on lessons learned from his decades of work for peace in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.

Today’s episode features three current Keough School of Global Affairs students who took part in the course “Racial Justice In America,” offered through the Center for Social Concerns. The conversation is hosted by Euda Fils (MGA '23), and the guests include Bernice Antoine (B.A. '26) and Aidé Cuenca Narvaéz (MGA '23). The course's curriculum is centered around Clint Smith's book, How the Word Is Passed, which is about Clint’s visit "to eight places in the United States as well as one abroad to understand how each reckons with its relationship to the history of American slavery.” As part of the course, students were offered the opportunity over spring break to visit some of the same sites that Clint did, as well as some other additional sites in the US that were important in both the history of slavery and the story of the struggle for civil rights.

In this episode, Contending Modernities editor and writer Josh Lupo and Professor Atalia Omer, Co-Director of Contending Modernities, interview three contributors to their edited volume, Religion and Broken Solidarities: Feminism, Race, and Transnationalism. The volume explores distinct moments in time across various geopolitical settings when solidarity failed to be realized between marginalized communities because of differences of race, nationalism, religion, and/or ethnicity. These contributions are intended to open up paths for imagining new forms of solidarity now and in the future. In conversation with Ruth Carmi (Ph.D. '23), the editors discuss the reasons why alliances between Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians have been so difficult to achieve, in spite of both groups’ marginalization by the Israeli government. With Brenna Moore, they reflect upon Black Catholic attempts to create transnational partnerships that challenged the White Protestant status quo in early twentieth-century geopolitics. Finally, with Melani McAlister, they consider the role of the literary imagination in helping us contemplate paths beyond the trappings of our current political order. In each of these exchanges, the authors also reflect on their findings in light of the current political moment, rather it be in the recent challenges to the authority of the supreme court in Israel, the Black Lives Matter protests of Summer 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, or in the growing calls to substantively address the threat of climate change. What is revealed in these conversations is that challenging the structures that marginalize the most vulnerable in our society requires an intersectional analysis that refuses to treat any marker of identity or belonging as siloed off from others.

El Acuerdo Final de Paz de Colombia, suscrito en 2016, estableció como uno de sus principios orientadores el de la centralidad de las víctimas. El Acuerdo Final reconoce los daños y el sufrimiento desproporcionado que el conflicto armado interno les ocasionó a las víctimas. Por ello, las partes firmantes acordaron compromisos encaminados a satisfacer sus derechos a la verdad, la justicia, la reparación y la no repetición. En diciembre de 2022, el Instituto Kroc publicó el informe "Las víctimas al centro: estado de la implementación del Acuerdo Final desde la perspectiva de sus derechos", que analiza el estado de la implementación de aquellos compromisos relacionados con los derechos de las víctimas e identifica oportunidades para aumentar sus niveles de implementación. Este episodio presenta un diálogo entre Josefina Echavarría Álvarez, miembros de la Iniciativa Barómetro de la Matriz de Acuerdos de Paz, y Cielo Linares, investigadora del Centro Internacional para la Justicia Transicional, en el que se destacan los principales avances y retos presentados en el informe.

Twenty years ago, the US invasion of Iraq unleashed a series of humanitarian tragedies that, combined with the effects of sanctions, set back women’s rights for decades. In the years since, women’s groups across the country have continued to work for progress, despite many obstacles. In this episode, Anna Romandash (MGA '22), a Brembeck Fellow at Fourth Freedom Forum, talks with Nadje Al-Ali, the Robert Family Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Brown University, about feminist activists in the country, the role of younger generations of Iraqi, and the ways in which international allies can facilitate and provide support to Iraqi women rights groups. Learn more about the impacts of war and critiques on the strategy of using military intervention to enhance women’s rights in Romandash's report and policy brief.

In this episode, Josefina Echavarría, director of the Peace Accords Matrix and associate professor of the practice, hosts a conversation with the Honorable Juan Manuel Santos, Former President of Colombia and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate about the 2016 Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the former FARC-EP that ended the country’s deadly 52-year armed conflict and its current state of implementation.

This is the second of two podcast conversations with authors of policy briefs in the newest collection published by the Kroc Institute's Peace Accords Matrix. The briefs address content and process-related issues in peace agreement design, especially regarding inclusion of citizens’ rights. In this episode, Josefina Echavarría, director of the Peace Accords Matrix and associate professor of the practice, hosts a conversation with policy brief authors Cécile Mouly, research professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), Ecuador, and coordinator of the Research Group on Peace and Conflict, and Luis Peña, Visiting Research Fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and Vice President of the International Association of Reconciliation Studies. You can read all policy briefs at peaceaccords.nd.edu/policy.

This is the first of two podcast conversations with authors of policy briefs in the newest collection published by the Kroc Institute's Peace Accords Matrix. The briefs address content and process-related issues in peace agreement design, especially regarding inclusion of citizens’ rights. In this episode, Josefina Echavarría, director of the Peace Accords Matrix and associate professor of the practice, hosts a conversation with policy brief authors Felipe Roa-Clavijo, assistant professor in the School of Government at the Universidad de Los Andes, Rebecca Gindele, consultant on women’s rights and local peacebuilding issues in Colombia, and Sally Sharif, a post-doctoral research associate at the Kroc Institute. You can read all policy briefs at peaceaccords.nd.edu/policy.

Marty Kennedy, a 2022 graduate of the undergraduate program in peace studies, talks with peace studies alums and current students about the history and present state of both activism and scholarship for the inclusion of LGBTQ persons on the University of Notre Dame campus. Guests include Alex Coccia (B.A. '14), Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington, D.C.; Connor Hayes (B.A. '16), Legal Fellow with the ACLU of Pennsylvania; and Flora Tang (B.A. '18), Ph.D. student in peace studies and theology.