In the weeks leading up to the 2010 Costa Rican election, outgoing President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oscar Arias Sanchez visited the students, staff, and faculty of the University for Peace, marking the official inauguration of UPEACE's 30th anniversary celebrations.

In his address, President Arias emphasizes the social and political progress of the past thirty years, and argues that a continued commitment to education for peace, through the development of the imagination, intellectual curiosity, and a willingness to engage in politics, will bring us further towards the goal of a peaceful world.

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Media Coverage, Ideological Effects, and Naxal Violence
Ran Vijay

Recently, the violent activities of left wing extremist in India have increased. The continual violent activities of these groups have attracted much media attention. The movement has been given front-page coverage in the print media and the broadcast in prime time televised news. This paper argues that the increased coverage of Naxal activities has produced ideological effects which further strengthen mobilising the cadres and sympathisers of Naxal, consequently, increasing the frequency of violence.

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The Dialectic of Islam: an historiographical interpretation of Islamist political violence
Mamed Askerov and Christopher Schwartz

This paper aims to analyze the debate over political violence in contemporary Islam from the viewpoint of its historical roots. At the heart of the matter are two currents that have existed in the Muslim community since its very beginning: a dialectic between the intellectual and the martial, and competing interpretations of an idyllic patristic era, with several practical and ideological consequences. This paper will demonstrate how today's debate can be framed within this vision of Islamic history.

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