Political Mind Series 2022 | The Human Face of Peacemaking

Gabrielle Rifkind

Her original training was as a group analyst and psychotherapist, but has applied her thinking to international conflict and to what motivates creative or destructive behaviour. She is the founder and director of the Oxford Process, which specialises in preventive diplomacy and behind the scenes mediation in areas of conflict. She is currently working on the Ukraine crisis, but has many years of working in the Middle East to ripen the conditions for mediation. She has spent the last two decades exploring the relationship between geopolitics and the human mind and what motivates people both to get into and out of conflict. She has written three influential books: “The Psychology of Political Extremism” (Routledge); “The Fog of Peace: How to prevent war” (Bloomsbury), co-authored with the former senior UN diplomat Gianni Picco and “Making Terrorism History” (Rider). Her skills can be applied to international conflict, workplaces and family mediation. A political entrepreneur, author and broadcaster, Gabrielle regularly gives public lectures and has twice debated at the Oxford Union. She has written for newspapers, online publications and academic journals, including The Guardian, Times, Independent, Prospect and the New England Journal of Public Policy. She has been a regular conflict mediator for five series of BBC Radio 4’s “Across the Red Line”.