Scenarios for int. conflict resolution after the 2024 US presidential election
International Workshop | The Future of Transatlantic Relations #FOTAR2024
Russia’s ongoing aggression on Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war or enduring conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar, or Yemen: violence is increasing in multiple parts of the world. Meanwhile, multilateralism is under strain, limiting opportunities for conflict resolution and making traditional peacebuilding methods ineffective. The 2024 US presidential election thus comes at a crucial time for efforts to end wars and build peace around the world. Fears of violence also persist within the US after the last presidential election culminated in the January 6 US Capitol attack. A new approach to resolving conflicts and building peace is urgently needed.
To analyse the 2024 US election’s potential implications for conflict resolution and peacebuilding across the globe, the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg (EKH) and Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung (BKHS) have invited 13 early career professionals for a #FOTAR2024 Scholarship Programme.
Each participant is to prepare a draft policy brief of 3-4 pages in which they outline plausible scenarios for international conflict resolution and peacebuilding after the US election, depending on which party takes over the White House. In a two-day in-person workshop in Hamburg, Germany, the participants receive in-depth feedback and mentoring by peers and experienced discussants on their policy brief. Following the workshop, EKH and BKHS will publish the revised policy briefs in the lead-up to election day. The policy briefs are to focus on one of the following issue areas:
- Prospects for conflict resolution in 2024 and beyond
- Backlash against gender equality and the future of peacebuilding
- The UN’s role in coming crises of international peace and security
Our panel research questions
PANEL 1
Prospects for conflict resolution in 2024 and beyond
Democrats and Republicans disagree about many aspects of US foreign policy and both parties are also internally divided. This is perhaps most evident with regard to the wars in Gaza or Ukraine, but conflicts elsewhere may also be affected by shifts in US foreign policy.
As the 2024 US election takes place in a global environment characterised by a return to power politics and a weakening of international institutions, what will its outcome mean for future trajectories of conflicts around the world and prospects for their resolution?
PANEL 2
Backlash against gender equality and the future of peacebuilding
Democrats and Republicans are deeply divided on women’s and girls’ reproductive rights. Abortion laws will play an important role in the 2024 US election. This is not only a domestic policy issue but has international implications, as the watered-down 2019 UN resolution on helping survivors of war-related sexual violence shows.
As threats and attacks against women and LGBTQI* communities continue to rise globally, what are the consequences for states implementing feminist foreign policies and for approaches to peacebuilding?
PANEL 3
The UN’s role in coming crises of international peace and security
The US election takes place in the context of eroding multilateral cooperation. In the UN, this trend is linked to growing geopolitical competition between major powers, diverging interests of countries of the Global North and South or the crisis of the UN’s traditional tools, such as peacekeeping operations. A Republican administration will likely present a further challenge.
How can the UN be made fit to deal with future crises of international peace and security and what future form of peace operations is both possible and desirable?
Our discussants

On the podium for Panel 1:
Dr. Sascha Lohmann, German Institute for international Politics and Security

On the podium for Panel 2:
Dr. Simone Wisotzki, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt

On the podium for Panel 3:
Dr. Holger Niemann, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg
© IFSH/Matthies