Routledge Handbook of Peace, Security and Development

Fen Osler Hampson, Alpaslan Özerdem, Jonathan Kent, Fen Osler Hampson, Alpaslan Özerdem, Jonathan Kent

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781032400006
• eBook ISBN: 9781351172189
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Economía del desarrollo

This Handbook offers a comprehensive examination of the peace, security, and development nexus from a global perspective, and investigates the interfaces of these issues in a context characterised by many new challenges.

By bringing together more than 40 leading experts and commentators from across the world, the Handbook maps the various research agendas related to these three themes, taking stock of existing work and debates, while outlining areas for further engagement. In doing so, the chapters may serve as a primer for new researchers while also informing the wider scholarly community about the latest research trends and innovations.

The volume is split into three thematic parts:

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• Concepts and approaches

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• New drivers of conflict, insecurity, and developmental challenges

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• Actors, institutions, and processes.

For ease of use and organisational consistency, each chapter provides readers with an overview of each research area, a review of the state of the literature, a summary of the major debates, and promising directions for future research.

This Handbook will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, development studies, security studies, and International Relations.

Part I

Concepts and approaches

1

Meanings of peace

Landon E. Hancock and Johanna Solomon

Historical context

From time immemorial, the idea of peace has always stood in juxtaposition to the reality of war. From ancient texts such as Sun Tsu, Thucydides, and Machiavelli, we were told that violence and war were a natural part of the human condition. On the other hand, many of the world’s great religions have preached the principles of peace and nonviolence, even while their adherents have acted with extreme barbarity towards believers and non-believers alike (Barash, 2017, 199). For most of these groups and for much of human history, peace was regarded solely as the absence of conflict.

However, the end of the Second World War ushered in what might best be called a scientific approach to peace. In thrall to the idea of modernism and in fear of the consequences of all out nuclear war, social scientists began what they saw—and to some extent still see—as a logical scientific approach to the causes of war and the systems and methods of peace. As Harty and Model (1991) show, much of this work centered around academics focusing on the causes of human violence and questions of whether these causes existed within human nature from time immemorial (cf.Lorenz, 1966), come from the cultures and traditions practiced across millennia (Isaacs, 1989; Ross, 1993), or were derived from the social structures that guide and govern modern life (Galtung, 1969; Marx and Engels, 1948).

With the introduction of peace science and conflict resolution approaches the meanings of peace itself became much more complex. Peace as the absence of war and large-scale violence became known as negative peace, and peace itself—or positive peace—took on a broader meaning, including the reordering of human societies to satisfy what was becoming known as basic human needs (cf. Azar, 1990; Burton, 1990; Maslow, 1962) and to address sources of structural violence, social constructs and conditions that caused harm, and even violence to societies, but which did not take place at the hands of specific agents acting with intent (Galtung, 1969, 1990).

State of the literature

Peace and conflict studies has a rich literature, much of which still frames our major debates. While the concepts of positive and negative peace inherited from Galtung (1969) continue to serve as one of our foundation stones, the field has grown beyond its original concerns of international peace and policy work to encompass many different approaches and concerns (Barash, 2017). Rogers (2016b) describes peace studies as having seven distinct goals: (1) addressing the underlying causes of direct violence and structural inequalities, (2) using interdisciplinary approaches, (3) studying non-violent transformations including preventing the re-occurrence of violence, (4) using multi-level analysis including individual to inter-state, (5) taking a global multi-cultural perspective, (6) seeing itself as both a field of analysis and normative aims, and (7) linking theory to practice.

While the literature on peace continues to address war and conflict, this represents only a small portion of the field. The international relations of war and peace continue to be discussed, updating theories for modern issues (cf. Aron, 2003; Richmond and Franks, 2009). Rogers (2016a) discusses new frontiers in warfare and how they impact peace, such as terrorism and irregular warfare. Stiglitz (2002) is one of many authors addressing globalization and its impacts on conflict. Additionally, within international relations, critiques of prior theories continue to grow, adding reflection and nuance. This includes Russett (1994) and Lipson (2003), who discuss concepts such as democratic peace, while Richmond (2011, 2013), Mac Ginty (2009, 2010, 2011), and Cooper (2007) among others form the core of a subfield of critical peacebuilding, focusing on the shortcomings of traditional approaches to peacemaking, peacebuilding and, particularly, statebuilding.

Conflict resolution concepts continue to undergird our study and understanding of peace. Over time, these concepts have grown in detail, inclusivity, diversity and critique. Broad works encourage peace studies theorists and practitioners to move beyond realist concepts of power to constructivist concepts of culture, narrative, and the role of identity in driving conflict. One outgrowth of this has been an explosion of handbooks focusing on different aspects of peace, security, development, and conflict resolution (cf. Coleman et al., 2014; De Rivera, 2008; Gastil and Levine, 2005; Lederach and Jenner, 2002; Mac Ginty, 2013; Oetzel and Ting-Toomey, 2006). These handbooks showcase the knowledge that has been built and, moreover, the strength of the field in terms of interest as well as publisher willingness to engage in such a deep fashion.

Negotiation is emphasized both interpersonally, in well-known bestsellers like Negotiation Theory and Practice (Breslin and Rubin, 1993) and Getting to Yes (Fisher et al., 1991), and internationally in works by Darby (2001), Darby and Mac Ginty (2000, 2003), Druckman (2007), Mitchell (2000), Pillar (1983), Fortna (2004), Rubin (1991), Shapiro (2016), Wanis-St. John (2006), and Zartman (1995). Each of these authors has focused on different aspects of peacemaking and negotiation, including issues of when to enter into negotiations, how to sequence those negotiations, how to persuade parties to come to the table and how to bridge the gap between official diplomacy and what is now termed unofficial, track two or multi-track diplomacy (cf. Jones, 2015; Diamond and McDonald, 1996).

Like the literature on negotiation, literatures focusing on other elements of peace and conflict studies, such as mediation, unofficial diplomacy, peacebuilding, peace education, and peace history have expanded to fill gaps in our understanding and to more fully plumb the connections between peace studies and other disciplines. One of the more esoteric areas of contact between peace studies and other disciplines includes the field of transitional justice—which seeks to provide avenues for coexistence and, eventually, reconciliation, in post-conflict societies (cf. Aiken, 2013; Avruch, 2010; Ben-Josef Hirsch, 2007; Hamber, 2006; Hancock and Zeren, 2011; Pabón, 2018; Rae, 2009; Teitel, 2014, 2000).

Another area of connection between peace and conflict studies and other disciplines is in the subfield of nonviolence studies. While at one time the connection between nonviolence and peace studies writ large was distant, events such as the color revolutions of the post-Cold War era and the more recent Arab Spring movement have garnered the attention of peace studies scholars seeking to extend beyond systemic critiques to analyze how change can be brought about without the massive destruction inherent in wars and other forms of violence. The literature on nonviolence addresses everything from analyzing when and how it works (Ackerman and Kruegler, 1994; Chenoweth and Stephan, 2011; Mayton, 2009; Nepstad, 2015; Schock, 2005; Sharp, 1973), to when and how it might not (Hancock, 2014b; Kou, 2000; Way, 2008), to methods of practice (Binnendijk and Marovic, 2006; Marchant et al., 2008; Sharp, 2012), and examples of key case studies in nonviolent direct action from around the world, including Palestine (Pearlman, 2011), the post-Soviet space (Nikolayenko, 2007), and the Arab Spring movement (Nepstad, 2013).

As each generation enters the field, they build upon existing foundations. For instance, early work by Burton (1969) on problem-solving workshops has been built upon by scholars like Kelman (2000), d’Estrée (2008), Maoz (2011), Abu-Nimer (2001), and Nan et al. (2009) among others. These scholars have focused on specific elements of the Problem-Solving Workshop (PSW) process, arguing that more attention needs to be paid to its uses and to how the learning in these workshops either gets transferred to the larger populations or is affected by the power dynamics both within and outside the process itself. In addition, collaborative processes seeking to include and empower local actors are often stressed. Identity needs, culture, and emotion are included, rather than excluded, as important analytic areas of study, with PSW practices being shaped by these factors.

Many of these newer branches of the literature are informed by critical theory approaches and feminist-inspired deconstruction of assumed norms and practices of other disciplines and, often, members of the international practice community. Critical theory across these areas of focus addresses the roles of power imbalances (Saguy et al., 2009), gender (Bjarnegård and Melander, 2011; Kent, 2016; Donohue and Druckman, 2009), and narrative (Hancock, 2014a; Mac Ginty and Firchow, 2016) among others. All seek to interrogate long-established meanings of both conflict and peace. In doing so they challenge researchers and practitioners to expand their understandings and capabilities beyond traditional views and to problematize both the many sources of conflict as well as the many approaches we use to seek its resolution or transformation.

Despite the advances made by this critical approach to the meanings of peace, many debates continue as academics, practitioners and policy-makers seek both better tools and a better understanding. Next, we turn our attention to just a few of these before attempting to prognosticate about the future of the field.

Major debates

In a field as broad and diverse as peace and conflict studies, there are countless debates about approaches and methods, areas of study, and depth of focus. So many so that it is impossible for one short essay, or even a long volume, to capture them all. Therefore, while recognizing that there are many other tensions both within the field and between the field and other disciplines, we present three major tensions that have developed as the field itself has matured: the seminal conflict between a narrow focus on war prevention vs. a broader focus on social justice; the question of how to retain our norms and best practices as the ideas and concepts of peace and conflict studies spread beyond the field; and the continuing tension between academic work and theory-building and the practice that many of us see as highly relevant for a field that seeks to engender positive social change.

Positive peace and social change vs. political and social peace

One of the most contentious debates that came with Galtung’s idea of structural violence and positive peace was the extent to which peace studies and conflict resolution scholars should be engaging in broad social change rather than in discrete efforts to reduce the threat of war and widespread violence. Although the concepts of structural violence, negative and positive peace have become central to the canon of peace studies and conflict resolution, early in the field there was heated debate about whether adopting these concepts would broaden the scope of the field so much as to make it indistinguishable from other academic pursuits. One particular debate on this view was that between Galtung himself and Kenneth Boulding, economist and one of the founders of conflict resolution as a sub-discipline. Boulding’s main critique of Galtung had to do with the fact that Boulding saw structural violence as a metaphor rather than as a model, and a poor metaphor at that. While Boulding agreed that poverty and decreased life chances were vitally important, he argued that the structures responsible for these were only peripherally related to those which produced violence, thus conflating the very important sub-field of peace studies with much broader concerns across academia (Boulding, 1977, 84).

Galtung countered that his main problem with Boulding’s view was that it failed to take into account the negative effects of larger systems, such as those which grow out of imbalances of power. Galtung argued that while he agreed with Boulding that an absence of war does constitute peace, it only constitutes an unstable peace, and that by ignoring the effects of structural violence and the instability of negative peace, peace studies scholars are failing to address what he sees as one of the main drivers of violent conflict (Galtung, 1987). As debates go, these two scholars epitomize different paradigms of peace studies, one seeking a narrow focus on the causes of war and the other seeking transformational change to society as a whole.

In some senses this debate has long been settled. Many in the field do see the signs of structural violence and many believe that it continues to constitute a major problem resulting in unstable peace. However, there is still very little that members of the peace studies, or conflict resolution communities appear to be able to do about it. Work by scholars like Lederach (1997) and others has helped us to focus on a middle area—the subsystem as Dugan (1996) puts it—where structures and relationships might both be affected. Work on elicitive intervention, training, and peacebuilding has given us some tools to listen to and heed the voices of the powerless and less powerful—and a host of other techniques have been developed by scholars and practitioners in environmental dispute resolution and public conflict resolution that seek to enhance and encourage deliberative participation by community members who are affected by systems of structural violence.

However, it must be said that despite these advancements—and they are many—larger systems of structural violence still run rampant and unaddressed by peace studies and conflict resolution scholars and practitioners. In part this is because of the continuing disagreement as to whether peace and conflict studies are best served through relational-level processes which seek incremental change, or whether we need to move past a narrow focus on consensual mechanisms for change and more widely embrace calls for more revolutionary change, where mass movements espousing nonviolence coerce change out of systems of structural violence (Rubenstein, 2017).

Norms, best practices and the spread of the field

Over the past three decades there has been a rapid growth in the number of university programs focused on peace and conflict studies (Coy, 2009). This growth was mirrored by an interest in issues relating to peace and conflict studies from academics from across many related disciplines. However, as with many other fields, this growth has also resulted in some diffusion of the norms and ethos that first defined the field and drew together its founding members.

Nowhere is this diffusion more evident than in the scholarship and practice surrounding the concept of peacebuilding. First defined by Galtung (1975)...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• Editors
• Acronyms
• Introduction
• Part I Concepts and approaches
• Part II New drivers of conflict, insecurity, and development challenges
• Part III Actors, institutions, and processes
• Index