Biography
Mariano Aguirre is an independent analyst on international politics. He has been senior adviser on peacebuilding at the Office of the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Colombia (2017-19).
Previously, he was the director of the Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution (NOREF), in Oslo (2009-2016), program officer on peace and security with the Ford Foundation (New York), co-director of FRIDE (Madrid), director of the Peace Research Center (Madrid) and deputy director of the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam).
He is a non-resident senior researcher at the Barcelona Centre on International Affairs (CIDOB), advisor of the Regional Centre on Peace and Security of the of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation), and coordinator of a project on Europe and the Global South for the eAtlantic Foundation (Basque Country, Spain). He is also a board member of the Equitas Foundation (Chile), the Human Rights Institute (Deusto University) and the Institute of Studies about Conflict and Humanitarian Action (Spain).
As a journalist and analyst he has written, co-authored and edited several books, on issues ranging from neo-imperialism in fragile states, humanitarian intervention, exclusion and violence in the Global South and, most recently, on the domestic and international crisis of legitimacy in the United States, the 2016 Colombian peace agreement, the Gaza War and the rise of the Global South. His last book is Guerra Fría 2.0. Claves para Entender la Nueva Política Internacional (Icaria, Barcelona, 2023).
Mariano is also a peace and security practitioner, with his work particularly on the Middle East and Latin America evolving around the concepts of state fragility, state and peacebuilding, political dialogue and mediation, conflict prevention and stabilization.
He is a regular contributor to Política Exterior (Spain), BBC Mundo, El Pais, The World Today, Janus (Portugal) and other international media. He is also a commentator on international affairs in Deutsche Welle TV, France24, CNN (in their Spanish versions) and Spanish TVE.
Aguirre holds an MPhil in Peace and Conflict Studies from Trinity College, Dublin.
He is professor of postgraduate studies at the Human Rights Institute at the Deusto University in Bilbao, University Castilla-La Mancha, and the School of Culture of Peace-Autonomous University of Barcelona.
