Building on LISD's portfolio of research, outreach, and education, this initiative focuses on democracy, security, and migration within the African context, exploring challenges and opportunities for nation-states and societies, as well as for the world as a whole.

The project on Afghanistan and the Region is a multiyear, multiphase, interdisciplinary endeavor that focuses on state, security, and capacity building in Afghanistan from domestic, regional, cultural, geopolitical and humanitarian perspectives. It was funded in part by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The Arctic initiative is an interdisciplinary, multiphase project focusing on issues that include energy, natural resources and environmental concerns, strategic interests of the Arctic States, law and policy development, self-determination of indigenous peoples, and the global shipping trade.

The Crisis Diplomacy project studies the emergent "new" diplomacy of the twenty-first century by considering how post-Cold War global interconnectedness, non-state actors, and challenges from terrorism and piracy to humanitarian crises and pandemics demand an altered conceptualization and practice of "traditional" diplomacy.

The project on Environment and Migration explores the intersection between self-determination and the topical concerns of migration, sustainable development, and the environment.

The Ethics of Policy Fellowship program gives a competitively selected cohort of students the opportunity to ethically assess policies and provide guidance to practitioners for ethical policy making.

This comparative research project analyzes the impact of extreme right populist movements, parties, and beliefs on the foreign policies of advanced democracies. The research catalogues the concrete foreign policy actions of governments where the extreme right has participated; explains how and why the impact of the extreme right varies across time, countries, and issues; and evaluates potential policy responses. The primary focus is on Europe and North America, with additional attention to the developing world.

Gender in the Global Community examines the functioning of gendered structures and norms in the international system, focusing especially on security, human rights, economic activity, and institution building. The project is currently engaged with two key subprojects: Conflict-Related Sexual Violence and Children and Armed Conflict.

The Global Food and Water Security (GFWS) project is an international, interdisciplinary endeavor to benefit all of humanity – particularly women and children, mothers and babies. It was launched in the fall of 2022 by Wolfgang Danspeckgruber and Michael Schoenleber ’12 at the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) in Princeton and Liechtenstein. Food, fertilizer and water security are deeply interconnected issues and relate directly to geopolitics, especially in an era where nearly everything can be “weaponized.”  

The project on Global Governance investigates how power is exercised in the global order by and over global institutions, states, non-state actors, and individuals. There are currently three subprojects: Norms in Global Governance, the UN Veto Initiative, and Equity in Pandemic Health Governance.

The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) is a founding member of the Initiatives on Contemporary European Affairs (ICEA) at Princeton University and is responsible for the coordination and administration of the project, under the leadership of program director Rafaela Dancygier and executive committee members Sophie Meunier and Andrew Moravcsik.

The project on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, now entering its fifth year, contributes to the regional organization’s security dialogue with a particular focus on emerging dynamics of security and generational perspectives. 

This project examines the evolution, features, and implications of the rapid growth of Investment Screening Mechanisms (ISM) in advanced industrialized democracies in recent years.

The 2024-2025 PORDIR on Religion and Reconciliation will address geopolitical events and their effects though the perspective of religion and the spirit of reconciliation—particularly with respect to intergenerational views, including personal experiences. Participants will hear national and international experts and representatives from religions, academia, politics, and the private sector. All are invited to address the questions, How do women and men, young and old, and diverse members of faith communities (or communities of no particular faith) respond to trauma and injustice? and How can these communities bridge religious and sectarian divides, overcome grievances, and foster constructive and meaningful dialogue, negotiation, and reconciliation? 

The project on State, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination addresses issues of boundaries, identity, variants of autonomy, governance, self-determination, self-determination’s potentially devoluting and state-shattering capabilities, and the emerging version of self-determination as “defining one’s own destiny.” Areas of focus in this project have included the Balkans, South Asia, the European Union (EU), and the former Soviet Union.