Week 2 - Theorizing Peace - What is peace? Flashcards
timeline of peace: st. augustine’s just war theory
413 CE: St. Augustine develops just war theory:
ASKS THE QUESTION OF WHAT ARE THE MORAL GROUNDS OF GOING TO WAR
1. Just cause: should be fought to defend injustice or to restore peace and order
2. Legitimate authority: to wage that war and authorized by sovereign leaders
3. Right intention: only to secure just peace
4. Probability of success: don’t do it for personal gain
5. Proportionality: use of force must be proportionate to the injuries suffered
6. Last resort: all other options must be exhausted
timeline of peace: roussaue’s project for perpetual peace
1761: Roussaue publishes a project for perpetual peace he says lasting peace is doable
1. We can have peace if we have political and moral reform that is committed to the principles of justice and equality
2. We need to restructure IR because it is based on power politics
3. Need to adopt the abolition of armies, need to form a league of states
timeline of peace: Kant’s Perpetual Peace
1795: Kant published perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch: believes peace is possible
1. Peace can only happen in democratic societies (must be rule of law)
2. A league of nations is a precondition for the abolition of war
3. States need to treat foreigners with respect
timeline of peace: geneva convention and 3 main pillars of conventions
1864: Geneva Convention is established
3 main pillars of conventions:
Medical personnel and facilities must be protected in war
Wounded should receive care regardless of nationality
Civilians should be safeguarded from violence
timeline of peace: Galtung and the birth of peace studies
Holy Grail of peace studies
Positive and negative peace all come from this text and research
Peace not to be studied in relationship to war but to violence
War is an expression of violence
Can deal with peace building as a whole
Overcome the distinctions between positive and negative peace
Negative peace = absence of personal violence
Positive peace = absence of structural violence
Structural violence is harm caused by social structures and institutions that perpetuate inequality and injustice - embedded in societal systems and disadvantage certain groups
Structural violence towards women and First Nations peoples - disenfranchised
Galtung – Three Approaches to Peace
Peacekeeping
- Mitigate conflict, rarely applies to a superpower
- Definition of a superpower is that they get to decide who meddles in their affairs, they are their own peacekeeper
- Super Powers intervene in the wars or conflicts over other nations
- Usually, ways that they get engaged in this warfare is wars that are bottom up – vertical warfare, wars of liberation, groups who are trying to liberate themselves from the dominant group trying to maintain power
- Wars of decolonization, Cold War
Peacemaking
- Horizontal warfare and can’t be explained in terms of domination
Contesting power between two relatively equal nations
- These horizontal wars grow out of an unrealistic concept of conflict resolution
- Peace agreement, everything will be fine – ASSUMPTION, not true
- Third party involvement to mitigate peace agreement
Actors that signed disintegrate and are no longer bound – cycle of war repeats itself
- Makes peace for a period but then there is a renewal of war
Peacemaking and peacekeeping don’t deal with structure
Peacebuilding
- Study of the structure of peace
- If you can find the structure, you can remove the cause of the warfare
Galtung’s (1976) Structure of Peace
Negation of anti-human conditions of exploitation, elitism and isolation
Equity
No party be exploited
Entropy
Not just governments participate, but a broad variety of people, institutions take place
People to people interactions
Not just between states but also at the grassroots level
Symbiosis
High level of interdependence
Structure of peace has to emphasize the need for relationships between states, peoples and nations
Broad scope
Large domain
More than just two or three parties to the exchange
State representative, civil society representative, international organization
Multiple people who are part of this peacebuilding
Superstructure
Communities like the European Union or NAFTA that holds all elements together
Peace is what we study AND build, look at these structures
Build where they don’t exist and see where these structures are being attacked
Peacebuilding structures helps us understand that we are agents of peace
Peace is not what the state or international organizations say it is, but it is what we can also define and therefore build peace
Fundamental element to this agency of peacebuilding is that it is through individuals that the structure of peace gets embedded with values and/or norms – elites aren’t able to do because they are too removed from the actual fighting that they cannot actually understand these norms or values
Richmond (2005) and Liberal Peace (5 pillars)
Liberal peace is the idea of political and economic principles are the root of peacebuilding and conflict resolution
5 pillars of liberal peace:
Democratic gov. Democratic peace theory
1. A market economy: free trade investment promotes economic independence which fosters stability
2. Human rights and the rule of law: the legitimacy of the state
International institutions and cooperation: links to market economy and fosters global community
Nation binding and reform: how international organizations pushed for development
Commonality: ALL INSTITUTIONS
The liberal peace and the Biafran war
The rigid institutional approach of the liberal peace framework overlooks the informal social processes and local traditions that are crucial for peacebuilding
Conceptualising Peace - Oliver Richmond
Richmond (2005) and Liberal Peace
- The five pillars of the liberal peace are: (1) democratic governance, (2) a market economy, (3) human rights and the rule of law, (4) international institutions and cooperation, and (5) nation-building and reform
- Agenda for peace inspired between peace and development becomes the foundational text for peace building which is what the liberal peace is
What do we mean by peace that came into being at the end of the 56 civil war conflict?
Asks us whether we are engaging in advocating for a form of governance which if benevolent may engender other consequences that we may not intend
His is concerned that liberal peace may be a defensive model against the worst excess of the state nature
Peace is the tranquility of order according to Saint Augustine
According to the Catholic Church it is the result of justice, charity and economic equality
People Building Peace - Tongeren et. Al
People Building Peace
1. What are the key concepts that the text is engaging with?
- Grassroots and bottom up peace building within the context of the state
- Mutual relationship between individual and the institution
- Reconciliation and how the government should listen to the individuals
- Peace is always attached to the state
With collaboration and other elements, politics happens within borders, states
Peace definition, peace building, peace process
- Transitional period in peace
Multi-track approaches
- What is the relationship that the text is establishing between these concepts?
- Peace definition, peace building, peace process - What are the mechanisms that the text is using to establish those relationships?
The text establishes that peacebuilding and peace processes cannot be fully understood without considering both top-down (state-level) and bottom-up (community-level) efforts.
Reconciliation is linked to the relationship between individuals and institutions, where both parties must engage in dialogue and mutual recognition to achieve peace.
Peace is always framed within the context of the state, but peacebuilding requires the engagement of actors from multiple levels, especially the grassroots.
This relationship suggests that sustainable peace requires collaboration across different political and social spheres, including the state, civil society, and international actors.
The transitional period is framed as a key time when the government must listen to individuals, acknowledge grievances, and engage in both formal and informal peacebuilding practices.
Multi-track approaches are presented as mechanisms to reconcile the various peace-building efforts at the individual, community, state, and international levels, reinforcing that peace is not a linear or singular process but a multifaceted and dynamic one.
