Elizabeth Cousens
Vice President
cousens@ipinst.org
Dr. Cousens is Vice President of the International Peace Academy, where she also leads policy initiatives related to UN reform, peacebuilding, and global crisis management.
Dr. Cousens previously directed the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, a research group based at the Social Science Research Council that specializes in country and regional analysis for UN decision-makers. She also served with the UN Special Co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process where she headed the Office’s Donor Co-ordination Unit and covered issues including Palestinian governance and refugee aspects of final status negotiations. Earlier, Dr. Cousens served as IPI’s Director of Research. She was also a Visiting Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.
Dr. Cousens has lectured widely on multilateral peace operations, the United Nations and developments in the former Yugoslavia. She has a Ph.D. in International Relations from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and a B. A. in History from the University of Puget Sound.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
- “Bosnia and Herzegovina,” with David Harland, in Twenty-first Century Peace Operations: Pivotal Cases, ed. William Durch and Paul Stares (forthcoming 2006).
- “The UN Security Council and Conflict Prevention,” in The UN Security Council: From the Cold War to the 21st Century, ed. David Malone. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004.
- “Ending Civil Wars: The Success and Failure of Negotiated Settlements. Editor (with Stephen John Stedman and Donald Rothchild). Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002.
- “Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile Societies. Editor (with Chetan Kumar and Karin Wermester). Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001.