POLS IR Seminars Series
Assessing Employment Discrimination Against Ex-combatants
Oliver Kaplan
(University of Denver)
Abstract
Economic reintegration is a critical part of peacebuilding, helping former combatants transition into civilian life. Yet stigma from employers may block access to formal jobs, threatening the success of reintegration programs. In this study, we implement a résumé field experiment to test whether ex-combatants in Colombia face labor market discrimination, and whether signals of rehabilitation reduce bias. Partnering with the government's Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization, we use real résumés from eight job-seeking ex-combatants. We randomly vary whether they disclose ex-combatant status, highlight education or reconciliation experience, signal work experience, or mention tax incentives. We track employer responses to identify which signals increase interest and under what conditions discrimination is most severe. This design provides unique causal evidence on employer behavior in post-conflict societies and will inform policies for how best to structure reintegration support.
Civilian Agency in Protracted, Low-Intensity Conflicts
Chiara Minora
Pols Phd Candidate (NASP - University of Milan)
The paper examines how civilians navigate and transform everyday life in protracted, low-intensity conflicts - contexts in which violence never fully ends, peace never fully arrives, and civilians must learn to live in an in-between state. Moving beyond a focus on high-intensity conflicts, it analyses how civilians adapt, normalise, and, at times, transform protective practices when conflict becomes a long-term condition. The paper explores how prolonged exposure to unresolved conflict shapes civilians' motivations, aspirations, and capacities for action, and how these evolve over time. It asks: how is civilian agency expressed and transformed in contexts of protracted, low-intensity conflict, and how do these dynamics shape local visions and practices of reconciliation or conflict transformation? Empirically, the paper draws on a qualitative case study of the conflict in Georgia and Abkhazia. Through semi-structured interviews with community members, activists, and local peace practitioners, it examines local practices such as dialogue initiatives, peace education, and everyday forms of conflict transformation.
17 September 2026, h.15:00
Room A
NASP Graduate School
Via Pace 10, Milan
This seminar is part of the POLS International Relations (IRS) Seminar Series
(Organizing Committee: Andrea Locatelli, Martina Cocchi, Edoardo Landoni, Chiara Minora, Nourhan Mohammed)
For an overview of the PhD Political Studies Seminar Series, click HERE
It is increasingly common to see media and policy references to peacemaking as "transactional". Recent peace talks and deals that emphasize trade, minerals, oil and reconstruction profits reinforce the idea that peacemaking is moving from an era of a liberal peace to an era of transactional peace. But does this stand up to scrutiny? This session seeks to unpack the extent to which the label 'transactional' is accurate. To a large extent, peace has always had transactional elements - although they now seem more obvious. Accounts of peacemaking as transactional overlook the pragmatist literature that seeks to contextualise transactionalism and stress how actors and actions are con-constitutive.
