Peace and Conflict Studies
The December 1996 issue of Peace and Conflict Studies published articles by Bjoern Moeller, Jan Oberg, Ramesh Thakur, Sean Byrne, and Takashi Hiraoka. This issue highlights a wide range of diverse themes, ranging from social models of ethnic conflict; reconstruction and development in conflict mitigation; nuclear disarmament; to the use of non-offensive defense for assisting in humanitarian intervention. To a great extent, these themes suggest directions for peace-building efforts in the post-Cold War period.
Bjoern Moeller, Secretary General Elect of the International Peace Research Association, focuses on how the military can be reorganized to perform functions other than destruction. Dr. Moeller suggests that defensive restructuring of armed forces worldwide, as envisioned by non-offensive defense theories, should be linked to peace support operations. While non-offensive defense is opposed to building offensive capabilities, it is suitable for such operations as humanitarian interventions.
Legal and moral doubts about nuclear weapons are raised by both Ramesh Thakur, head of the Peace Research Center at the Australian National University, and Mayor of Hiroshima, the Honorable Takashi Hiraoka. Thakur sheds light on regional and global security risks posed by the acquisition and retention of nuclear stockpiles. The main thrust of his argument is that the military and political utility of nuclear weapons is very limited and that there is a need to reconsider current strategies for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Mayor Hiraoka conveys the message of the urgent need to abolish nuclear weapons. He writes convincingly that the human suffering caused by atomic bomb exposure of women, children, and other unarmed civilian populations can occur again in the future should efforts toward the abolition of nuclear weapons fail.
In "Conflict Mitigation in Reconstruction and Development," Jan Oberg, director of Sweden's Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, argues that conditions for a more humane, just, and democratic future can be created by recognizing diverse roles of conflict in human development and social change. Conflict resolution needs to be reconceptualized in terms of reconstruction of community relations and peace building, he says, and for that purpose, conflict training and education programs by NGOs and international organizations must give serious attention to the role of reconciliation, economic cooperation, and democratic governance in conflict resolution.
Sean Byrnes, professor of Dispute Resolution and International Relations at Nova Southeastern University, is co-author of an article on social forces affecting ethno-territorial politics in Northern Ireland and Quebec. He and his colleague Neal Carter focus on the social cube model of conflict which has six interrelated facets or forces, including history, religion, demographics, political institutions, economics, and psychocultural factors. Through this model, they describe how the six forces combine to produce patterns of intergroup behavior which perpetuate conflict in Northern Ireland and Quebec.
In the latest issue of International Journal of Peace Studies (January 1997) is a collection of papers by scholars who have been engaged in peace research over the last several decades. In the field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Raimor Vayrynen (director, the Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame) and Luc Reychler (director, the Center for Peace Research and Strategic Studies, University of Leuven, Belgium) offer insights on conflict prevention and the role of religion in conflict generation and resolution. Vayrynen discusses political, economic, and military instruments in conflict prevention, applying his model to conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Reychler describes how religious organizations can act as conflicting parties, bystanders, peacemakers, or peace builders in varying circumstances.
Economic and social justice, an important field in peace research, is addressed by political economist Miles Wolpin, who links deteriorating human rights conditions to competition in a free market economy. The role of communication in the maintenance of a hierarchical world order has not been sufficiently researched, and Majid Tehranian (former director, University of Hawaii's Peace Research Center) fills the gap, examining the way expanding global communication has contradictory effects in centralizing and dispersing power, homogenizing and pluralizing societies, and globalizing and localizing cultural identities.
Glenn Paige (director, Center for Global Nonviolence) and Michael True (convener, the Nonviolence Commission of the International Peace Research Association) explain major characteristics of nonviolence and apply nonviolence principles and policies to recent student uprisings in China. Paige explains nonviolence in terms of non-death dealing public policies and institutions, and the spiritual heritage of humankind. According to True, the history of previous dissent can be explored in an analysis of the dilemmas faced by Chinese students in their 1989 democratic uprising.
The journal advances knowledge in the field of conflict prevention; forms of third-party interventions; training, education, and community building; sustainable development and ecological security; human rights and reconciliation. To promote the understanding of conflict dynamics and the process of peace building, it invites new perspectives and diverse methodologies, including post-modernist ethnography, hermeneutics, feminist critique of the world order, critical pedagogy, and post-structural interpretation of global problems.