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Lisa Schirch

Richard G. Starmann, Sr. Professor of the Practice of Peace Studies

Lisa Schirch headshot
Office
332 Hesburgh Center for International Studies
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Phone
(574) 631-6970
Email
lschirch@nd.edu

Expertise

Technology; media; human security; social cohesion; social justice; conflict assessment; dialogue; mediation; peace process design; religion; ritual; arts; nonviolent social movements; violent extremism

Biography & Research

Lisa Schirch is the Richard G. Starmann, Sr. Professor of the Practice of Peace Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and a core-affiliated faculty member of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Schirch has 30 years of experience in peacebuilding research, policy advocacy, practice and teaching. A political scientist by training, she earned her Ph.D. in 1989 from George Mason University's Carter Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. Her most recent book, "Social Media Impacts on Conflict and Democracy: The Tech-tonic Shift" (Routledge, 2021) features 13 local case studies from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The book maps how digital technologies drive "social climate change," including polarization, extremist anti-immigrant, and anti-minority purity narratives.

Schirch's current research focuses on the positive roles of technology in "peacetech" and "digital peacebuilding." As a senior research fellow with the Toda Peace Institute, Schirch coordinates with civil society and technology companies to experiment and innovate new technologies that can scale social cohesion. As a researcher, she has an extensive history of research and publication.

A former Fulbright Fellow in East and West Africa, Schirch is the author of 11 books emphasizing local civil society agency and capacity, including "Strategic Peacebuilding" (2005), "Ritual and Symbol in Peacebuilding" (2006), "Dialogue on Difficult Subjects" (2007), "Conflict Assessment and Peacebuilding Planning: Toward a Participatory Approach to Human Security" (2014), "The Ecology of Violent Extremism" (2018), "Synergizing Nonviolent Action & Peacebuilding" (2018) and "Social Media Impacts on Conflict and Democracy: The Tech-tonic Shift " (2021). Her publications have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Thai, and Japanese.

As a policy advisor, Schirch built the first peacebuilding policy initiative in Washington, D.C. as the founding director of the Alliance for Peacebuilding's Policy Program from 2006-2015. Schirch brought delegations of peacebuilding practitioners from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries to Congress and trained over 1,000 US Foreign Service Officers and military officers on civil society peacebuilding and the relevance of the Geneva Conventions to civil-military relations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, she co-led a three-year global research process documenting civil society innovations in relating to security forces resulting in two publications: "A Handbook on Human Security" (2016) and "Local Ownership in Security: Case Studies of Peacebuilding Approaches" (2016). As a practitioner, Schirch has experience in peace process design, mediation, and facilitation in over twenty countries. Beginning as a mediator for the Washington, D.C. courts in 1992, Schirch has facilitated intergroup dialogue in diverse settings, including between black and white city leaders in Richmond, Virginia, and between civil society leaders and the U.S. military in Afghanistan. 

As a practitioner, Schirch works primarily with local peacebuilding initiatives innovating new methods of combining dialogue and social movements to transform conflict. Schirch co-facilitated the national peace process in Fiji in 2001. Her book "Designing a Comprehensive Peace Process for Afghanistan" describes eight mechanisms for local civil society participation in formal peace processes and how these could work in Afghanistan, based on three years of in-country research from 2009 to 2011. She has provided training and support to the UN Mediation Support team, drawing on her book "Synergizing Nonviolent Action & Peacebuilding "for information on how to sequence social movement tactics and peace negotiations. Recognition for Schirch's research has come in various forms. Schirch served as co-chair of the US State Department working group on Religious Actors, Diplomacy, and Peacebuilding from 2015 to 2016 and on the Dutch government's Security and Rule of Law Platform Research Review Panel from 2016 to 2020. Since 2015, she has served on the Geneva-based Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund's International Panel of Experts.

Schirch has presented her research as a keynote speaker at two Pentagon conferences, during Congressional hearings on national security, at UN headquarters in Geneva and New York, and in London's Whitehall, Chatham House, and Wilton Park.

As a teacher, Schirch served as professor of peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University ‘s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and Summer Peacebuilding Institute from 1995-2020, as both graduate and undergraduate faculty and co-founder of the PAX major in peace and development studies. Schirch has taught short courses at nearly 20 other universities and with local civil society groups. Recognition for Schirch's research has come in various forms. Schirch served as co-chair of the US State Department working group on religious actors, diplomacy, and peacebuilding from 2015-2016 and on the Dutch government's security and rule of law platform research review panel from 2016-2020. Since 2015, she has served on the Geneva-based Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund's international panel of experts. Schirch has presented her research as a keynote speaker at two Pentagon conferences, during congressional hearings on national security, at UN headquarters in Geneva and New York, and in London's Whitehall, Chatham House and Wilton Park.

Recent Work

Courses

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