SSRC

Research Interests:
UN peace operations and conflict resolution processes.

Current Research:
“Equal peace”-project: Research was focused on understanding how peace operations affect gender power-relations? Peace operations are mainly focused on establishing security and to assist the building of institutions to handle conflict. On the surface, this does not appear to affect internal power relationships, particularly not between local men and women, that is, gender power-relations. The norm that operations should not meddle in the private affairs of a state has been, and to some extent remains, deep-seated. However, research on international interventions, and more particularly peace operations, have observed that post-Cold War operations, particularly those with substantial enforcement and peacebuilding assignments, have more directly come to affect internal power dynamics in spite of official intention.

The purpose of the project was twofold. It sought to a) develop the concept of gender power-relations; b) systematically explore consequences of peace operation factors. The aim was to provide blocks for theory-building. To accomplish this, suggestions drawn from related research were organized into an analytical framework applied to an empirical material - peace operations in Timor-Leste 1999-2006. The project was methodologically and theoretically based in mainstream research, while utilizing suggestions from feminist research. Although the purpose was to contribute to constructing research theory, the policy origin of the research puzzle inevitably places the study in the context of existing UN norm-systems and policies.

A PhD project on this topic was completed in April 2007.

Recent Publications:
“Peacekeeping; Problems and Methods” in The International Encyclopedia of Peace, Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

”Peacekeeping” in Encyclopedia of Social Problems, Sage (forthcoming 2008).

“Equal Peace. United Nations Peace Operations and the Power-Relations between men and women in Timor-Leste”, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Report 76, 2007.

”Equal Peace? Consequences of Peace Operations for Host State’s Gender Relations”, paper presented at International Studies Association, 47th Annual Convention, San Diego, March 22-25, 2006.

“The Namibian Peace Operation in a Gender Context” in Dyan Mazurana, Angela Raven-Roberts, and Jane Parpart (Eds.) Gender, Conflict, and Peacekeeping. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005.

Guest Editor, Security Dialogue - Special Issue on Gender and Security 35(4), Lene Hansen & Louise Olsson. London: SAGE Publications, 2004.

"Guest Editor's Introduction", Lene Hansen & Louise Olsson. Security Dialogue, 35(4), 405-410. London: SAGE Publications, 2004.

Co-editor, Gender Aspects of Conflict Interventions: Intended and Unintended Consequences. Case Studies on the United Nations Mission in Eritrea/Ethiopia (UNMEE), the NATO Stabilization Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR) and the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) Final Report to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo. Louise Olsson, Inger Skjelsbæk, Elise F. Barth and Karen Hostens. Oslo: PRIO, 2004.

Editor, Gender and Peace Processes - An Impossible Match?. Uppsala: Collegium for Development Studies, Uppsala University, 2003.

”Do Peacekeeping Operations Affect Gender Relations in Host States”. Paper presented at International Studies Association's 44th Annual Convention, 25 February – 1 March, Portland, Oregon, USA, 2003.

“A labour for Peace”, New Routes. Uppsala: Life and Peace Institute, Vol. 6, no.2, 2001.

Peacekeeping in a gender context – a frame for analysis. Paper presented at the conference "Alva Myrdal's Questions to Our Time", March 6-8, 2002 at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Women and International Peacekeeping. Olsson, Louise and Torunn L. Tryggestad [Eds.] London & Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001.

Gender Mainstreaming in Practice: The United Nations Transitional Assistance Group in Namibia, Journal of International Peacekeeping. Summer 2001. London & Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 2001.

Mainstreaming Gender in Multidimensional Peacekeeping: A Field Perspective, Journal of International Peacekeeping. Winter 2000. London & Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000.

Gendering UN Peacekeeping: Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peacekeeping, Report no. 53. Uppsala: Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 1999. Olsson et. al.

Executive Summary, Preparatory Workshop: Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peacekeeping. Uppsala: Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 1999.

Teaching interests:
UN operations, conflict resolution and gender.