Ever since my exchange year in the USA, in the turbulent years of 1967–68, I have been interested in politics. As a young Swiss, I was both surprised and fascinated by the intensity and violence of US politics, as I witnessed race riots and Vietnam War protests, and got myself involved in a presidential primary campaign. Returning to Switzerland, I landed in the midst of the May 1968 turmoil and promptly involved myself in social and student politics. I quickly learned that real politics was not just about passion and commitment, but also hard work. If I was to succeed, I had to better understand how politics worked at local, national and global levels. I decided to study politics, and enrolled in the Graduate Institute’s international relations programme.
I studied at the Institute from 1969 to 1973, and enrolled in the doctoral programme in 1974, after a year of research in Southeast Asia gathering raw material for my thesis on ethnicity and national integration. However, my doctoral studies were interrupted in 1976 by an invitation to join a UN research institute as Assistant Project Director. It was then that I started a 35-year career working in and alongside the UN, working initially on development politics. In the early 1990s, I focused on the new types of conflicts emerging after the end of the Cold War, how to prevent and resolve them, and how to help war-torn societies rebuild stable peace.
In 1994, I set up the UN’s War-torn Societies Project, initially a joint UN-Graduate Institute project which later evolved to become Interpeace, a unique partnership between the UN and NGO worlds. With around 350 staff in 20 countries, and an annual budget of over USD 25 million, Interpeace is now one of the largest private peacebuilding organisations in the world.
My studies and work at the Graduate Institute from 1969 to 1976, and later as Deputy Director at PSIS from 1992 to 1995, prepared me in many ways for my subsequent professional career. The Institute offered me a unique interdisciplinary immersion into the study, analysis and practice of political relations. Given the Institute’s link to the UN, the ICRC and the Swiss diplomatic service, I learned to practice research in an action-oriented perspective. The student and teaching body, a truly multinational, multidisciplinary and multicultural mix, gave me an important exposure to bright, committed students from around the world, and to exceptional mentors such as Jacques Freymond, Curt Gasteyger and Roy Preiswerk.
Around 40 years since completing my studies at the Graduate Institute, which taught me to understand and respond to complex and interrelated challenges so well, the Institute’s multidisciplinary and action-oriented perspectives remain as unique and important as ever.
This article was published in the new edition of Globe, the Graduate Institute review.