![Denkmal Versoehnung Berlin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Denkmal_Versoehnung_Berlin.jpg)
Peace and conflict studies is a
social science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...
field that identifies and analyzes
violent
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened o ...
and
nonviolent
Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
behaviours as well as the
structural mechanisms attending
conflicts
Conflict may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Films
* ''Conflict'' (1921 film), an American silent film directed by Stuart Paton
* ''Conflict'' (1936 film), an American boxing film starring John Wayne
* ''Conflict'' (1937 film) ...
(including
social conflict
Social conflict is the Conflict (process), struggle for Agency (sociology), agency or Power (sociology), power in society.
Social conflict occurs when two or more people oppose each other in social interaction, and each exerts social power with re ...
s), with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable
human condition
The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed fr ...
. A variation on this, peace studies (irenology), is an
interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking "victory" for all parties involved in the conflict.
This social science is in contrast to
military studies
Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing mil ...
, which has as its aim the efficient attainment of victory in conflicts, primarily by violent means to the satisfaction of one or more, but not all, parties involved. Disciplines involved may include
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
,
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
,
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
,
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...
,
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
,
communication studies
Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differen ...
,
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
,
international relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...
,
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
,
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
,
religious studies, and
gender studies
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
, as well as a variety of others. Relevant sub-disciplines of such fields, such as
peace economics
Peace economics is a branch of conflict economicsSilwal, Shikha B., Charles H. Anderton, Jurgen Brauer, Christopher J. Coyne, and J. Paul Dunne. (2021). The Economics of Conflict and Peace: History and Applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univers ...
, may be regarded as belonging to peace and conflict studies also.
Historical background
Peace and conflict studies is both a pedagogical activity, in which teachers transmit knowledge to students; and a research activity, in which researchers create new knowledge about the sources of conflict. Peace and conflict studies entails understanding the concept of peace which is defined as political condition that ensures justice and social stability through formal and informal institutions, practices, and norms.
As pedagogical activity
Academics and students in the world's oldest universities have long been motivated by an interest in
peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
. American student interest in what we today think of as peace studies first appeared in the form of campus clubs at United States colleges in the years immediately following the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. Similar movements appeared in Sweden in the last years of the 19th century, as elsewhere soon after. These were student-originated discussion groups, not formal courses included in college curricula. The first known peace studies course in higher education was offered at
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
in 1888.
The
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
was a turning point in Western attitudes to war. At the 1919
Peace of Paris—where the leaders of France, Britain, and the United States, led by
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (, also , ; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he was a ...
,
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during t ...
, and
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
respectively, met to decide the future of Europe—Wilson proposed his famous
Fourteen Points
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms ...
for peacemaking. These included breaking up European empires into nation states and the establishment of the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
. These moves, intended to ensure a peaceful future, were the background to a number of developments in the emergence of Peace and Conflict Studies as an academic discipline (but they also, as
Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in m ...
presciently pointed out, laid the seeds for future conflict). The founding of the first chair in International Relations at
Aberystwyth University
, mottoeng = A world without knowledge is no world at all
, established = 1872 (as ''The University College of Wales'')
, former_names = University of Wales, Aberystwyth
, type = Public
, endowment = ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, whose remit was partly to further the cause of peace, occurred in 1919.
![Manchester College Administration Building](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Manchester_College_Administration_Building.jpg)
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the founding of the
UN system
The United Nations System consists of the United Nations' six principal organs (the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the UN Secretariat), ...
provided a further stimulus for more rigorous approaches to peace and conflict studies to emerge. Many university courses in schools of higher learning around the world began to develop which touched upon questions of peace, often in relation to war, during this period. The first undergraduate academic program in peace studies in the United States was developed in 1948 by Gladdys Muir, at
Manchester University
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
a liberal arts college located in
North Manchester, Indiana
North Manchester is a town in Chester Township, Wabash County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 6,112 at the 2010 census.
Geography
North Manchester is located at (41.003951, -85.772573).
According to the 2010 census, North ...
.
It was not until the late 1960s in the United States that student concerns about the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
forced ever more universities to offer courses about peace, whether in a designated peace studies course or as a course within a traditional major. Work by academics such as
Johan Galtung
Johan Vincent Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its ...
and
John Burton, and debates in fora such as the ''
Journal of Peace Research
The ''Journal of Peace Research'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews in the fields of peace and conflict studies, conflict resolution, and international security. It was established by J ...
'' in the 1960s reflected the growing interest and academic stature of the field. Growth in the number of peace studies programs around the world was to accelerate during the 1980s, as students became more concerned about the prospects of nuclear war. As the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
ended, peace and conflict studies courses shifted their focus from international conflict
[Harris, Fisk, and Rank 1998] and towards complex issues related to political violence,
human security Human security is a paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents challenges the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be at the human rather t ...
,
democratisation
Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic Regime, political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an Authoritarianism, auth ...
,
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
,
social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
,
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
,
development
Development or developing may refer to:
Arts
*Development hell, when a project is stuck in development
*Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting
*Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped
*Photographi ...
, and producing sustainable forms of peace. A proliferation of international organisations, agencies and international NGOs, from the UN,
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, prom ...
,
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, and
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
to
International Crisis Group
The International Crisis Group (ICG; also known as the Crisis Group) is a transnational non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in 1995. It is a think tank, used by policymakers and academics, performing research and analysis on global ...
,
International Alert
International Alert is a global peacebuilding charity offering dialogue, training, research and policy analysis, advocacy and outreach activities focusing on solving the root causes of conflict with people from across divides.
For over 30 yea ...
, and others, began to draw on such research.
[Miall, Ramsbotham, & Woodhouse 2005]
Agendas relating to positive peace in European academic contexts were already widely debated in the 1960s. By the mid-1990s peace studies curricula in the United States had shifted "...from research and teaching about negative peace, the cessation of violence, to positive peace, the conditions that eliminate the causes of violence."
As a result, the topics had broadened enormously. By 1994, a review of course offerings in peace studies included topics such as: "north-south relations"; "development, debt, and global poverty"; "the environment, population growth, and resource scarcity"; and "feminist perspectives on peace, militarism, and political violence".
There is now a general consensus on the importance of peace and conflict studies among scholars from a range of disciplines in and around the social sciences, as well as from many influential policymakers around the world. Peace and conflict studies today is widely researched and taught in a large and growing number of institutions and locations. The number of universities offering peace and conflict studies courses is hard to estimate, mostly because courses may be taught out of different departments and have very different names. The
International Peace Research Association
The International Peace Research Association is a global network of academics. It was founded in 1964 and promotes peace by supporting national organizations, hosting conferences, publishing and supporting the publication of peace-promoting journa ...
website gives one of the most authoritative listings available. A 2008 report in the ''
International Herald Tribune
The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...
'' mentions over 400 programs of teaching and research in peace and conflict studies, noting in particular those at the
United World Colleges
United World Colleges (UWC) is an international network of schools and educational programmes with the shared aim of "making education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future." The organization was founde ...
,
Peace Research Institute Oslo
The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO; no, Institutt for fredsforskning) is a private research institution in peace and conflict studies, based in Oslo, Norway, with around 100 employees. It was founded in 1959 by a group of Norwegian researcher ...
,
Universitat Jaume I
Jaume I University ( es, Universidad Jaime I, ca-valencia, Universitat Jaume I, UJI; ) is a university in the city of Castelló de la Plana, Valencian Community, Spain. It was founded in 1991, and it has approximately 14,000 students. The camp ...
in
Castellón de la Plana/Spain, the
Malmö University
Malmö University ( sv, Malmö universitet) is a public university located in Malmö, Sweden. With more than 24,000 students and about 1,600 employees (academic and administrative), Malmö University is the ninth largest institute of learning in S ...
of Sweden, the
American University
The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...
,
University of Bradford
The University of Bradford is a Public university, public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be creat ...
, the UN mandated Peace University
UPEACE
The University for Peace (UPEACE) is an international university and intergovernmental organization. The university was established as a treaty organisation by the United Nations General Assembly in 1980.
Each year, the University for Peace se ...
in
Ciudad Colón
Colón, known as Ciudad Colón is a district and the head city of the Mora canton, in the San José province of Costa Rica. It is famous for its warm climate, proximity to nature and its surrounding mountains, folkloric traditions, horse riding, ...
/
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
,
George Mason University
George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...
,
Lund
Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
,
Notre Dame,
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, established_ ...
,
Uppsala
Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...
,
Innsbruck School of Peace Studies
Since 2001, the ''Innsbruck School of Peace Studies'' has been developed by Wolfgang Dietrich and his team at the University of Innsbruck. Austria. In 2008 the UNESCO Chair for Peace Studies has been established. In 2017 the team of rectors founde ...
/
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
, and
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. The
Rotary Foundation
The Rotary Foundation is a non-profit corporation that supports the efforts of Rotary International to achieve world understanding and peace through international humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs. It is supported solely b ...
and the
UN University
The (UNU) is the think tank and academic arm of the United Nations. Headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, with diplomatic status as a UN institution, its mission is to help resolve global issues related to human development and welfare thro ...
supports several international academic teaching and research programs.
A 1995 survey found 136 United States colleges with peace studies programs: "Forty-six percent of these are in church-related schools, another 32% are in large public universities, 21% are in non-church related private colleges, and 1% are in community colleges. Fifty-five percent of the church-related schools that have peace studies programs are
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
. Other denominations with more than one college or university with a peace studies program are the
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
,
Mennonites
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radic ...
,
Church of the Brethren
The Church of the Brethren is an Anabaptist Christian denomination in the Schwarzenau Brethren (german: link=no, Schwarzenauer Neutäufer "Schwarzenau New Baptists") tradition that was organized in 1708 by Alexander Mack in Schwarzenau, Germa ...
, and
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4 ...
. One hundred fifteen of these programs are at the undergraduate level and 21 at the graduate level. Fifteen of these colleges and universities had both undergraduate and graduate programs."
Other notable programs can be found at the
University of Manitoba
The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.[Lancaster University
Lancaster University (legally The University of Lancaster) is a public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several pla ...](_blank)
,
Hiroshima University
is a Japanese national university located in Higashihiroshima and Hiroshima, Japan. Established in 1929, it was chartered as a university in 1949 following the merge of a number of national educational institutions.
History
Under the Nationa ...
,
University of Innsbruck
The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669.
...
,
Universitat Jaume I
Jaume I University ( es, Universidad Jaime I, ca-valencia, Universitat Jaume I, UJI; ) is a university in the city of Castelló de la Plana, Valencian Community, Spain. It was founded in 1991, and it has approximately 14,000 students. The camp ...
,
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
,
University of Queensland
, mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work
, established =
, endowment = A$224.3 million
, budget = A$2.1 billion
, type = Public research university
, chancellor = Peter Varghese
, vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry
, city = B ...
,
King's College (London)
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
,
Sault College
Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology is a publicly funded college in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It began in 1965 as the Ontario Vocational Centre. Today, Sault College offers full-time and part-time opportunities for students in post-sec ...
,
London Metropolitan,
Sabanci,
Marburg
Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...
,
Sciences Po
, motto_lang = fr
, mottoeng = Roots of the Future
, type = Public university, Public research university''Grande école''
, established =
, founder = Émile Boutmy
, a ...
,
Université Paris Dauphine
Paris Dauphine University - PSL (french: Université Paris-Dauphine, also known as Paris Dauphine - PSL or Dauphine - PSL) is a public research university based in Paris, France. It is one of the 13 universities formed by the division of the ancie ...
University of Amsterdam
The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...
,
Otago
Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...
,
St Andrews
St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...
Brandeis University's Heller Schooland
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
. Perhaps most importantly, such programs and research agendas have now become common in institutions located in conflict, post-conflict, and developing countries and regions such as (e.g., National Peace Council),
Centre for Human Rights
The Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law, South Africa, is an organisation dedicated to promoting human rights on the continent of Africa. The centre, founded in 1986, promotes human rights through educational o ...
,
University of Sarajevo
The University of Sarajevo ( Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: ''Univerzitet u Sarajevu'' / Sveučilište u Sarajevu / Универзитет у Сарајеву) is a public university located in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the larges ...
,
Chulalongkorn University
Chulalongkorn University (CU, th, จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย, ), nicknamed Chula ( th, จุฬาฯ), is a public and autonomous research university in Bangkok, Thailand. The university was originally fo ...
,
National University of East Timor
The National University of East Timor (UNTL; pt, Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosa'e; Tetum: ''Universidade Nasionál Timór Lorosa'e''), is a public university in East Timor, the only one of its kind in the country.
Founded in 2000, as a result ...
,
University of Kabul
Kabul University (KU; prs, دانشگاه کابل, translit= Dāneshgāh-e-Kābul; ps, د کابل پوهنتون, translit=Da Kābul Pohantūn) is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd ...
, on September 11, 2014 University of peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan established an Institute with prime objective of offering peace education to the youth who suffered it most since 1979 Afghan war. It is called Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS).
As research activity
![JohanGaltung-Genève-1992](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/JohanGaltung-Gen%C3%A8ve-1992.jpg)
Although individual thinkers such as
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
had long recognised the centrality of peace (see
Perpetual Peace
''Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch'' (german: Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf) is a 1795 book authored by German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In the book, Kant advances ideas that have subsequently been associated with demo ...
), it was not until the 1950s and 1960s that peace studies began to emerge as an academic discipline with its own research tools, a specialized set of concepts, and forums for discussion such as journals and conferences. Beginning in 1959, with the founding of the
Peace Research Institute Oslo
The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO; no, Institutt for fredsforskning) is a private research institution in peace and conflict studies, based in Oslo, Norway, with around 100 employees. It was founded in 1959 by a group of Norwegian researcher ...
(PRIO), associated with
Johan Galtung
Johan Vincent Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its ...
, a number of research institutes began to appear.
In 1963,
Walter Isard
Walter Isard (April 19, 1919 – November 6, 2010) was a prominent American economist, the principal founder of the discipline of regional science, as well as one of the main founders of the discipline of peace studies and Peace economics.
Life an ...
, the principal founder of
regional science
Regional science is a field of the social sciences concerned with analytical approaches to problems that are specifically urban, rural, or regional. Topics in regional science include, but are not limited to location theory or spatial economics, l ...
, assembled a group of scholars in
Malmö
Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...
, Sweden, for the purpose of establishing the Peace Research Society. The group of initial members included
Kenneth Boulding
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (; January 18, 1910 – March 18, 1993) was an English-born American economist, educator, peace activist, and interdisciplinary philosopher.David LatzkoKenneth E. Boulding Commentsat personal.psu.edu. Accessed 24 April 200 ...
and
Anatol Rapoport
Anatol Rapoport ( uk, Анатолій Борисович Рапопо́рт; russian: Анато́лий Бори́сович Рапопо́рт; May 22, 1911January 20, 2007) was an American mathematical psychologist. He contributed to general ...
. In 1973, this group became th
Peace Science Society Peace science was viewed as an interdisciplinary and international effort to develop a special set of concepts, techniques and data to better understand and mitigate conflict. Peace science attempts to use the quantitative techniques developed in economics and political science, especially
game theory
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...
and
econometrics
Econometrics is the application of Statistics, statistical methods to economic data in order to give Empirical evidence, empirical content to economic relationships.M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," ''The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of ...
, techniques otherwise seldom used by researchers in peace studies. The Peace Science Society website hosts the second edition of the
Correlates of War The Correlates of War project is an academic study of the history of warfare. It was started in 1963 at the University of Michigan by political scientist J. David Singer. Concerned with collecting data about the history of wars and conflict among s ...
, one of the most well-known collections of data on international conflict. The society holds an annual conference, attended by scholars from throughout the world, and publishes two scholarly journals: ''
Journal of Conflict Resolution
The ''Journal of Conflict Resolution'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on international conflict and conflict resolution. It was established in 1957 and is published by Sage Publications. The editor-in-chief is Paul ...
'' and ''
Conflict Management and Peace Science
''Conflict Management and Peace Science'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal appearing five times a year that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews in the field of international relations (specifically peace and conflict studies) on topi ...
''.
In 1964, the
International Peace Research Association
The International Peace Research Association is a global network of academics. It was founded in 1964 and promotes peace by supporting national organizations, hosting conferences, publishing and supporting the publication of peace-promoting journa ...
was formed at a conference organized by
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
s in Clarens, Switzerland. Among the original executive committee was
Johan Galtung
Johan Vincent Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its ...
. The IPRA holds a biennial conference. Research presented at its conferences and in its publications typically focuses on institutional and historical approaches, seldom employing quantitative techniques. In 2001, the
Peace and Justice Studies Association
The Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA) is a non-profit organization headquartered at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
It was created following increased interest in peace-building after the September 11th attacks in USA, and it ...
(PJSA) was formed as a result of a merger of two precursor organisations. The PJSA is the North American affiliate of IPRA and includes members from around the world with a predominance from the United States and Canada. The PJSA publishes a regular newsletter (''The Peace Chronicle''), and holds annual conferences on themes related to the organization's mission "to create a just and peaceful world" through research, scholarship, pedagogy, and activism.
In 2008,
Strategic Foresight Group
Strategic Foresight Group (SFG) is a think tank based in India that works on global issues. It was established in 2002.
SFG has worked with governments and national institutions of 60 countries from around the world. It produces scenarios and p ...
presented its report on an innovative mechanism to find sustainable solution to conflicts in the Middle East. It also developed a new Water Cooperation Quotient, which is a measure of active cooperation by riparian countries in the management of water resources using 10 parameters including legal, political, technical, environmental, economic and institutional aspects.
Description
Peace studies can be classified as:
* Multidisciplinary, encompassing elements of
Politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and
International Relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...
(particularly
critical international relations theory
Critical international relations theory is a diverse set of schools of thought in international relations (IR) that have criticized the theoretical, meta-theoretical and/or political status quo, both in IR theory and in international politics mor ...
),
Sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
,
Geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
,
Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
,
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
and
Economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...
.
Critical theory
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...
is also widely used in peace and conflict studies.
* Multilevel. Peace studies examines intrapersonal peace, peace between individuals, neighbours, ethnic groups, marriages, states and civilisations.
* Multicultural.
Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
is often cited as a paradigm of Peace Studies. However, true multiculturalism remains an aspiration as most Peace Studies centres are located in the West.
* Both Analytic induction, analytic and norm (sociology), normative. As a normative discipline, Peace Studies involves value judgements, such as "better" and "bad".
* Both theoretical and applied.
There has been a long-standing and vibrant debate on disarmament issues, as well as attempts to investigate, catalogue, and analyse issues relating to arms production, trade, and their political impacts. There have also been attempt to map the economic costs of war, or of relapses into violence, as opposed to those of peace.
Peace and conflict studies is now well established within the social sciences: it comprises many scholarly journals, college and university departments, peace research institutes, conferences, as well as outside recognition of the utility of peace and conflict studies as a method.
Peace Studies allows one to examine the causes and prevention of war, as well as the nature of violence, including social oppression, discrimination and marginalization. Through peace studies one can also learn peace-making strategies to overcome persecution and transform society to attain a more just and equitable international community.
Feminist scholars have developed a speciality within conflict studies, specifically examining the role of gender and interlocking systems of inequality in armed and other conflicts.
The importance of considering the role of gender in post-conflict work was recognised by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, United Nations Security Council resolution 1325. Examples of feminist scholarship include the work of Carol Cohn and Claire Duncanson.
Ideas
Conceptions of peace
The negative and positive peace framework is the most widely used today. Negative peace refers to the absence of direct violence. Positive peace refers to the absence of indirect and structural violence, and is the concept that most peace and conflict researchers adopt. This is often credited to Galtung
[Galtung & Jacobsen 2000] but these terms were previously used by Martin Luther King in the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in 1963, in which he wrote about "negative peace which is the absence of tension" and "positive peace which is the presence of justice." These terms were perhaps first used by Jane Addams in 1907 in her boo
''Newer Ideals of Peace''
Several conceptions, models, or modes of peace have been suggested in which peace research might prosper.
*The crux of the matter is that peace is a natural social condition, whereas war is not. The premise is simple for peace researchers: to present enough information so that a rational group of decision makers will seek to avoid war and conflict.
*Second, the view that violence is sinful or unskillful, and that non-violence is skillful or virtuous and should be cultivated. This view is held by a variety of religious traditions worldwide: Quakers, Mennonites and other Peace churches within Christianity; Baháʼí Faith, Baháʼís, Jainism, Jains, Satyagraha, the Satyagraha tradition in Hinduism, Buddhism, and other portions of Indian philosophy, Indian religion and philosophy; as well as certain schools of Islam.
*Third is pacifism: the view that peace is a prime force in human behaviour.
* A further approach is that there are multiple modes of peace.
There have been many offerings on these various forms of peace. These range from the well known works of Immanuel Kant, Kant, John Locke, Locke, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Paine, on various liberal international and constitutional and plans for peace. Variations and additions have been developed more recently by scholars such as Raymond Aron, Edward Azar, John Burton, Martin Ceadal, Wolfgang Dietrich (political scientist), Wolfgang Dietrich, Kevin Dooley,
Johan Galtung
Johan Vincent Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its ...
, Michael Howard, Vivienne Jabri, John-Paul Lederach, Roger Mac Ginty, Pamina Firchow, Hugh Miall, David Mitrany, Oliver Ramsbotham,
Anatol Rapoport
Anatol Rapoport ( uk, Анатолій Борисович Рапопо́рт; russian: Анато́лий Бори́сович Рапопо́рт; May 22, 1911January 20, 2007) was an American mathematical psychologist. He contributed to general ...
, Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, Oliver Richmond, S. P. Udayakumar, S.P. Udayakumar, Tom Woodhouse, others mentioned above and many more. Democratic peace, liberal peace, sustainable peace, civil peace, hybrid peace, post-liberal peace, everyday peace, trans-rational peace(s) and other concepts are regularly used in such work.
Sustainable peace
Under the conceptions of peace, sustainable peace must be regarded as an important factor for the future of prosperity. Sustainable peace must be the priority of global society where state actors and non-state actors do not only seek for the profits in a near future that might violate the stable state of peace. For a sustainable peace, nurturing, empowerment, and communications are considered to be the crucial factors throughout the world. Firstly, nurturing is necessary to encourage psychological stability and emotional maturity. The significance of social value in adequate nurturing is important for sustainable peace. Secondly, in order to achieve real security, inner security must be secured along with arranged social systems and protection based on firm foundation. Lastly, communications are necessary to overcome ignorance and establish a community based on reliable and useful information. It will prevents isolation to take place which is critical to bring sustainable peace.
Conflict triangle
Johan Galtung
Johan Vincent Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its ...
's Violence Peace and Peace Research, conflict triangle works on the assumption that the best way to define peace is to define violence, its opposite. It reflects the normative aim of preventing, managing, limiting and overcoming violence.
* Direct (overt) violence, e.g., direct attack, massacre.
* Structural violence. Death by avoidable reasons such as malnutrition. Structural violence is indirect violence caused by an unjust structure and is not to be equated with an act of God.
* Cultural violence. Cultural violence occurs as a result of the cultural assumptions that blind one to direct or structural violence. For example, one may be indifferent toward the homeless, or even consider their expulsion or extermination a good thing.
Each corner of Galtung's triangle can relate to the other two. Ethnic cleansing can be an example of all three.
To simply understand these three
• Direct violence = harming or hurting body & mind
• Structural violence= economic exploitation & political repression
• Cultural violence = underlying values & epistemic models that legitimize direct & structural violence
Cost of conflict
Cost of conflict is a tool which attempts to calculate the price of conflict to the human race. The idea is to examine this cost, not only in terms of the deaths and casualties and the economic costs borne by the people involved, but also the social, developmental, environmental and strategic costs of conflict. The approach considers direct costs of conflict, for instance human deaths, expenditure, destruction of land and physical infrastructure; as well as indirect costs that impact a society, for instance migration, humiliation, growth of extremism and lack of civil society.
Strategic Foresight Group
Strategic Foresight Group (SFG) is a think tank based in India that works on global issues. It was established in 2002.
SFG has worked with governments and national institutions of 60 countries from around the world. It produces scenarios and p ...
, a think tank in India, has developed a Cost of Conflict Series for countries and regions involved in protracted conflicts. This tool is aimed at assessing past, present and future costs looking at a wide range of parameters.
Normative aims
![Pak-Uvira-32 (8137982111)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Pak-Uvira-32_%288137982111%29.jpg)
The normative aims of peace studies are conflict transformation and conflict resolution through mechanisms such as peacekeeping, peacebuilding (e.g., tackling disparities in rights, institutions and the distribution of world wealth) and peacemaking (e.g., mediation and conflict resolution). Peacekeeping falls under the aegis of negative peace, whereas efforts toward positive peace involve elements of peace building and peacemaking.
Teaching peace and conflict studies to the military
One of the interesting developments within peace and conflict studies is the number of military personnel undertaking such studies. This poses some challenges, as the military is an institution overtly committed to combat. In the article "Teaching Peace to the Military", published in the journal ''Peace Review'', James Smith Page, James Page argues for five principles that ought to undergird this undertaking, namely, respect but do not privilege military experience, teach the just war theory, encourage students to be aware of the tradition and techniques of nonviolence, encourage students to deconstruct and demythologize, and recognize the importance of military virtue.
Critical peace and conflict studies: hybridity, trans-rational peace, and elicitive conflict transformation
Scholars working in the areas of peace and conflict studies have made significant contributions to the policies used by non-governmental organisations, development agencies, international financial institutions, and the UN system, in the specific areas of conflict resolution and citizen diplomacy, development, political, social, and economic reform, peacekeeping, mediation, early warning, prevention, peacebuilding, and statebuilding. This represented a shift in interest from conflict management approaches oriented towards a "negative peace" to conflict resolution and peacebuilding approaches aimed at a "positive peace". This emerged rapidly at the end of the Cold War, and was encapsulated in the report of then-UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, ''An Agenda for Peace''. Indeed, it might be said that much of the machinery of what has been called "liberal peacebuilding" by a number of scholars and "statebuilding" by another is based largely on the work that has been carried out in this area. Many scholars in the area have advocated a more "emancipatory" form of peacebuilding, however, based upon a "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P), human security, local ownership and participation in such processes, especially after the limited success of liberal peacebuilding/ statebuilding in places as diverse as Cambodia, the Balkans, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This research agenda is in the process of establishing a more nuanced agenda for peacebuilding which also connects with the original, qualitatively and normatively oriented work that emerged in the peace studies and conflict research schools of the 1960s (e.g. see the Oslo Peace Research Institute research project on "Liberal Peace and the Ethics of Peacebuilding" and the "Liberal Peace Transitions" project at the University of St Andrews) and more critical ideas about peacebuilding that have recently developed in many European and non-western academic and policy circles. Some scholars have pointed towards the hybrid outcomes that have arisen in practice, indicating both the potential and problems of hybrid forms of peace, with an everyday orientation, and suggestive of the emergence of a post-liberal framework.
The UNESCO Chair for Peace Studies at the University of Innsbruck/Austria proposed in 2008 a culture-based classification of peace interpretations: energetic, moral, modern, post-modern and trans-rational approaches. The trans-rational approach unites existing spiritual interpretations of society and relation with the mechanistic methods of modern peace. Hence this school prefers the strictly relational and systemic method of elicitive conflict transformation (Lederach) to the prescriptive approaches of modern conflict resolution.
Criticism and controversy
A serious number of well established criticisms have been aimed at peace and conflict studies, often but not necessarily from outside the realms of university system, including that peace studies:
*do not produce practical prescriptions for managing or resolving global conflicts because "ideology always trumps Objectivity (philosophy), objectivity and pragmatism";
*are focused on putting a "respectable face on Western self-loathing";
*are hypocritical because they "tacitly or openly support terrorism as a permissible strategy for the 'disempowered' to redress real or perceived grievances against the powerful" (i.e. ideological anti-Western concepts developed by social scientists such as
Johan Galtung
Johan Vincent Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its ...
which arguably add a sense of unjustified acceptability which is used in support of radicalism);
*have curricula that are (according to human rights activist Caroline Cox and philosopher Roger Scruton) "intellectually incoherent, riddled with bias and unworthy of academic status...";
[Barbarians within the gate]
by Barbara Kay, National Post, February 18, 2009.
*have policies proposed to "eliminate the causes of violence" are uniformly Left-wing politics, leftist policies, and not necessarily policies which would find broad agreement among social scientists.
[Bawer 2007]
Barbara Kay, a columnist for the ''National Post'', specifically criticized the views of Norwegian professor
Johan Galtung
Johan Vincent Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its ...
, who is considered to be a leader in modern peace research. Kay wrote that Galtung has written on the "structural fascism" of "rich, Western, Christian" democracies, admires Fidel Castro, opposed resistance to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Soviet Invasion of Hungary in 1956, and has described Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov as "persecuted elite personages". Galtung has also praised Mao Zedong for "endlessly liberating" China. Galtung has also stated that the United States is a "killer country" that is guilty of "neo-fascist state terrorism" and has reportedly stated that the destruction of Washington, D.C., could be justified by America's foreign policy. He has also compared the United States to Nazi Germany for bombing Kosovo during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
[
In the Summer 2007 edition of ''City Journal (New York), City Journal'', Bruce Bawer sharply criticized Peace Studies. He noted that many Peace Studies programs in American Universities are run by Marxist or far-left Professors. More broadly, he argued that Peace Studies are dominated by the belief that "America ... is the wellspring of the world’s problems" and that while Professors of Peace Studies argue "that terrorist positions deserve respect at the negotiating table," they "seldom tolerate alternative views" and that "(p)eace studies, as a rule, rejects questioning of its own guiding ideology."][The Peace Racket]
by Bruce Bawer, City Journal, Summer 2007.
Regarding his claim that Peace Studies supports violence in the pursuit of leftist ideology, Bawer cited a quote from
Peace and Conflict Studies
', a widely used 2002 textbook written by Charles P. Webel and David P. Barash which praised Vladimir Lenin because he “maintained that only revolution—not reform—could undo capitalism’s tendency toward imperialism and thence to war."[
David Horowitz has argued that Webel and Barash's book implicitly supports violence for socialist causes, noting that the book states "the case of Cuba indicates that violent revolutions can sometimes result in generally improved living conditions for many people." Horowitz also argued that the book "treats the Soviet Union as a sponsor of peace movements, and the United States as the militaristic, imperialist power that peace movements try to keep in check" and that "the authors justify Communist policies and actions while casting those of America and Western democracies in a negative light." Horowitz also claimed that the authors discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis without mentioning its cause (i.e. the placement of the Soviet missiles in Cuba) and blame John F. Kennedy while praising Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev for "be[ing] willing to back down". Finally, Horowitz criticized the author's use of Marxist writers, such as Andre Gunder Frank and Frances Moore Lappe, as the sole basis on which to study "poverty and hunger as causes of human conflict."
Kay and Bawer also specifically criticized Professor Gordon Fellman, the Chairman of Brandeis University's Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies Program, who they claimed has justified Palestinian suicide-bombings against Israelis as "ways of inflicting revenge on an enemy that seems unable or unwilling to respond to rational pleas for discussion and justice."][
Katherine Kersten, who is a senior fellow at the Minneapolis-based conservative think tank Center of the American Experiment, believes that Peace Studies programs are "dominated by people of a certain ideological bent, and [are] thus hard to take seriously." Robert Kennedy, a professor of Catholic studies and management at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), University of St. Thomas, criticized his university's Peace Studies Program in an interview with ''Minneapolis Star Tribune'' in 2002, stating that the program employs several adjunct professors "whose academic qualifications are not as strong as we would ordinarily look for" and that "The combination of the ideological bite and the maybe less-than-full academic credentials of the faculty would probably raise some questions about how scholarly the program is."
]
Responses
Such views have been strongly opposed by scholars who claim that these criticisms underestimate the development of detailed interdisciplinary, theoretical, methodological, and empirical research into the causes of violence and dynamics of peace that has occurred via academic and policy networks around the world.
In reply to Barbara Kay's article, a group of Peace Studies experts in Canada responded that "Kay's...argument that the field of peace studies endorses terrorism is nonsense" and that "(d)edicated peace theorists and researchers are distinguished by their commitment to reduce the use of violence whether committed by enemy nations, friendly governments or warlords of any stripe." They also argued that:
...Ms. Kay attempts to portray advocates for peace as naive and idealistic, but the data shows that the large majority of armed conflicts in recent decades have been ended through negotiations, not military solutions. In the contemporary world, violence is less effective than diplomacy in ending armed conflict. Nothing is 100% effective to reduce tyranny and violence, but domestic and foreign strategy needs to be based on evidence, rather than assumptions and misconceptions from a bygone era.
Most academics in the area argue that the accusations that peace studies approaches are not objective, and derived from mainly leftist or inexpert sources, are not practical, support violence rather than reject it, or have not led to policy developments, are clearly incorrect. They note that the development of UN and major donor policies (including the EU, US, and UK, as well as many others including those of Japan, Canada, Norway, etc.) towards and in conflict and post-conflict countries have been heavily influenced by such debates. A range of key policy documents and responses have been developed by these governments in the last decade and more, and in UN (or related) documentation such as "Agenda for Peace", "Agenda for Development", "Agenda for Democratization", the Millennium Development Goals, Responsibility to Protect, and the "High Level Panel Report". They have also been significant for the work of the World Bank, international development agencies, and a wide range of nongovernmental organisations. It has been influential in the work of, among others, the UN, UNDP, UN Peacebuilding Commission, UNHCR, World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
, European Union, EU, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, prom ...
, for national donors including USAID, DFID, CIDA, NORAD, DANIDA, Japan Aid, GTZ, and international NGOs such as International Alert
International Alert is a global peacebuilding charity offering dialogue, training, research and policy analysis, advocacy and outreach activities focusing on solving the root causes of conflict with people from across divides.
For over 30 yea ...
or International Crisis Group
The International Crisis Group (ICG; also known as the Crisis Group) is a transnational non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in 1995. It is a think tank, used by policymakers and academics, performing research and analysis on global ...
, as well as many local NGOs. Major databases have been generated by the work of scholars in these areas.
Finally, peace and conflict studies debates have generally confirmed, not undermined, a broad consensus (western and beyond) on the importance of human security Human security is a paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents challenges the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be at the human rather t ...
, human rights, development, democracy, and a rule of law (though there is a vibrant debate ongoing about the contextual variations and applications of these frameworks). At the same time, the research field is characterized by a number of challenges including the tension between "the objective of doing critical research and being of practical relevance".[
Laurent Goetschel and Sandra Pfluger (eds.) (2014): Challenges of Peace Research http://www.swisspeace.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Media/Publications/WP_7_2014.pdf]
See also
* Arms control
* Center for Global Nonkilling
* Conflict resolution research
* Democratic peace theory
* Global Peace Index
* List of peace activists
* Nonkilling
* Nonviolence
* Peace and Justice Studies Association
The Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA) is a non-profit organization headquartered at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
It was created following increased interest in peace-building after the September 11th attacks in USA, and it ...
* Peace churches
* Peace education
* Security Studies
* Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
* Territorial peace theory
* War against war
* World peace
Journals
* ''International Peacekeeping''
* ''Journal of Conflict Resolution
The ''Journal of Conflict Resolution'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on international conflict and conflict resolution. It was established in 1957 and is published by Sage Publications. The editor-in-chief is Paul ...
''
* ''Journal of Peace Research
The ''Journal of Peace Research'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews in the fields of peace and conflict studies, conflict resolution, and international security. It was established by J ...
''
* ''Journal for Peace and Justice Studies''
* ''Peace Review''
* ''The Acorn (journal), The Acorn: Journal of the Gandhi-King Society''
People
* Camillo Mac Bica
* Elise M. Boulding
* Glenn D. Paige
* John Maynard Keynes
* Michael Murphy Andregg
* Stanley A. Deetz
* Johan Galtung
Johan Vincent Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its ...
* Jane Addams
Further reading
* Singer, J. David (1976).
An Assessment of Peace Research
" ''International Security''. 1 (1): 118–137.
Notes
Sources
*Raymond Aron, Aron, Raymond, ''Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations'', London: Transaction, 2003 [1966].
*Avruch, Kevin, Peter W. Black, and Joseph A. Scimecca (eds.), ''Conflict Resolution: Cross-Cultural Perspectives'', London: Greenwood Press, 1991.
*Azar, Edward E., ''The Management of Protracted Social Conflict'', Hampshire, UK: Dartmouth Publishing, 1990.
*Francis Beer, Beer, Francis A., ''Meanings of War and Peace'', College Station: Texas A&M University Press 2001.
* Beer, Francis A., ''Peace Against War'', San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1981.
*Boutros Ghali, ''An Agenda for Peace, An Agenda For Peace: preventative diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping'', New York: United Nations, 1992.
*Bawer, Bruce "The Peace Racket", ''City Journal,'' Summer 200
link
*Burton, J., & EA Azar, ''International Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice'', Wheatsheaf Books, 1986.
*Caplan, Richard, ''International Governance of War-torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction'', Oxford: OUP, 2005.
*Ceadal, M, ''Thinking About Peace and War'', Oxford: OUP, 1987.
*Chandler, D. ''Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-building''. Pluto Press, 2006.
*Churchman, D. ''The Origins, Nature, and Management of Human Conflict''. University Press of America, 2013.
*Cooper, Neil, "What's The Point of Arms Transfer Controls?", ''Contemporary Security Policy'', Vol. 27, No. 1, April 2006 pp. 118–137.
*Jarat Chopra, Tanja Hohe, "Participatory Intervention", ''Global Governance'', Vol. 10, 2004.
*Darby, John, and Roger MacGinty, ''Contemporary Peacemaking'', London: Palgrave, 2003.
*Wolfgang Dietrich (political scientist), Wolfgang Dietrich, Josefina Eachavarría Alvarez, Norbert Koppensteiner eds.: ''Key Texts of Peace Studies''; LIT Münster, Vienna, 2006.
*Wolfgang Dietrich (political scientist), Wolfgang Dietrich, Daniela Ingruber, Josefina Echavarría, Gustavo Esteva and Norbert Koppensteiner (eds.): ''The Palgrave International Handbook of Peace Studies: A Cultural Perspective'', London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
*Dooley, Kevin L, and S.P. Udayakumar, "Reconceptualizing Global Conflicts: From Us Versus Them to Us Versus Then," ''Journal of Global Change and Governance'', Volume 2, No. 1, Spring 2009.
*Duffield, Mark, ''Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security'', London: Zed Books, 2001.
*Dugan, M. 1989. "Peace Studies at the Graduate Level." ''The Annals of the American Academy of Political Science: Peace Studies: Past and Future'', 504, 72–79.
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*Interview with Werner Wintersteiner o
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Peace And Conflict Studies
Peace and conflict studies,
Subfields of political science