Friends Indeed? The United Nations, Groups of Friends, and the Resolution of Conflict

Teresa Whitfield (speaker) joined the Social Science Research Council in early March 2005 to direct the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (CPPF). Her latest book, Friends Indeed: the United Nations, Groups of Friends and the Resolution of Conflict, was researched and written while a visiting fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. From 1995-2000 Teresa worked as an official within the UN’s Department of Political Affairs, latterly in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General of Political Affairs. She has also worked as a consultant with the Ford Foundation and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and has a long association with CPPF, serving as regional advisor on Latin America from 2001-2003 and as acting director from 2001-2002. Her research interests include the United Nations, peace operations and the mediation of internal conflict. She has published on peace processes in Central America and Colombia, as well as on the role played by informal groups of states, or “Friends” in the resolution of conflict. A journalist and filmmaker in her early career, Teresa’s publications include Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador (Temple University Press, 1994), written while living in El Salvador from 1990-1992, and, most recently, a chapter on Colombia co-authored with Cynthia J. Arnson in Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict (ed. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall, United States Institute of Peace Press, 2005). She holds an MA in Latin American studies from the University of London and a BA in English literature from Cambridge University.

Patrick Johnston (discussant) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University and a CISAC predoctoral fellow. His dissertation, "Humanitarian Intervention and the Strategic Logic of Mass Atrocities in Civil Wars," asks why ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence frequently increase dramatically after international actors threaten to intervene militarily or deploy significant numbers of troops in coercive interventions. Johnston received a BA in history and a BA in political science, both with distinction, from the University of Minnesota, Morris and an MA in political science from Northwestern University.