For most of his career, Professor Nils Petter Gledisch has been so closely associated with the Peace Research Institute in Oslo that it is sometimes difficult to think of him in any other role. He started work there in 1964 as a Research Assistant working on the theme of non-violence but rapidly became the leader of a number of research projects having to do with Norwegian policy in a world dominated by the Cold War and the expansion of the European Economic Community. He became Director of PRIO in 1972 and again in 1977-8 and in 1983 he took over the editorship of the Journal of Peace Research, a position which he held with distinction for the next 27 years.
To focus on his work for PRIO would be to do much injustice to the breadth of Professor Gleditsch’s achievements internationally in the field of peace and conflict studies. Since 1993 he has held an appointment as Professor of Political Science at the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology. He served as President of the International Studies Association in 2008 and in the previous year was awarded the Lewis Fry Richardson Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Consortium for Political Research. His leadership of PRIOs working group on “Environmental Factors in Civil War” led to the group’s being awarded the title of a Center of Excellence by the Research Council of Norway. He has been a long standing member of the expert group on the Environment and Conflict Prevention under the UN Environment Programme.
His own research and publications have ranged widely across the field of peace and conflict. Non-violent defence, environmental change, the democratic peace, and – following the ending of the Cold War in the 1990s, - the nature of “the peace dividend”. Most recently, Professor Gleditsch has turned his attention to the topic of climate change and its possible effects on conflict and security, and he has co-edited two books on this and other environmental topics. All of this work has been characterized by careful, empirically based research, frequently using quantitative data - Nils Petter remains a committed positivist – but he takes great care that his writing is always clear, transparent, to the point and readable.
From his earliest days, Professor Gleditsch has been committed to the search for a more peaceful and just world and the role of scholarship in that world . In 1970, he led a campaign to persuade young scholars in Norway not to pursue a doctoral degree, which he regarded as something of an empty, conservative ritual, In 1981 he and his colleague, Owen Wilkes, using sources openly available to the public, published a study surveying U.S, military intelligence installations in Norway. Both authors were tried and sentenced for a violation of national security, in spite of the fact that they carefully avoided using any classified information. The sentence was suspended.
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