Peace Studies

Perspectives and Methods of Peace Studies

Johan Galtung, a pioneer in peace studies and conflict research, conceptualized two distinct peace types. First, the term negative peace describes a situation that lacks immediate, destructive conflict. Second, positive peace describes a more complex condition in which the structural roots of destructive conflict have been effectively addressed. Positive peace results when a society resolves social inequality and destructive conflict becomes unnecessary and unappealing. Therefore, peace studies researchers do not aim to prevent all conflict as that would leave the social structures contributing to destructive conflict unchallenged. Instead, much peace studies research focuses on finding opportunity in conflict, determining factors that contribute to destructive conflict, and finding more effective ways to resolve destructive conflict.

Given the diversity in academic perspectives at play, peace studies research operates under less defined scholarly boundaries than many research areas. As peace studies is interdisciplinary, researchers contribute their home discipline’s theories and perspectives to peace studies. Although some scholars do specialize in peace and conflict, many contribute to peace studies while also contributing to a research program within their home discipline. Any research addressing issues of conflict, power, and social justice may contribute to peace studies without the researcher necessarily intending to do so. For example, a study examining whether arguments between parents and children escalate more quickly using computer-mediated communication than when communicating face-to-face contributes to research in communication. In addition, any findings from such a study as it pertains to conflict in the online environment, words that intensify conflict, and the perspectives held by those involved in the conflict might interest peace studies scholars outside communication studies.

Since so many different topics are potentially relevant to research in peace and conflict, the label “peace studies” can be applied to numerous studies utilizing different methodological and theoretical approaches. Scholars using quantitative, qualitative, rhetorical, and critical methods all contribute research to peace studies. Some scholars approach peace studies from a moral and spiritual framework that incorporates religious principles. Many peace studies courses taught at private colleges integrate specific religious principles into their approach to peace studies. In addition, other researchers in the humanities incorporate ethical and moral perspectives into peace studies research without directly incorporating a specific religious approach.

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