The study of peace has been neglected over the ages and has emerged as a proper discipline only in recent decades. The first academic programs and scholarly institutes dedicated to peace did not appear until after World War II, and refereed journals such as the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the Journal of Peace Research did not begin publication until 1957 and 1964 respectively. Pioneers in the field included Kenneth and Elise Boulding, who helped create the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution at the University of Michigan in the 1950s; Johan Galtung, who founded the International Peace Research Institute in Norway in 1959; and Adam Curle, the first chair of a peace studies program in Britain, at the University of Bradford in 1973. Major studies and books about peace appeared in earlier decades, of course, but the systematic application of rigorous scholarship and empirical analysis to the problems of peacemaking did not begin until quite recently. This partly explains the inadequacies of many of the theories of peace. For much of history the cause of peace has predominantly been a religious concern. Moral reformers embraced the teachings of love and compassion in religious doctrine, but they often overlooked the challenges of political realism. Classical liberals extolled the virtues of democracy and free trade, but they underestimated the virulence of nationalism and the power of imperialism. Immanuel Kant probably came closest to crafting a comprehensive philosophy of peace, but his theory did not address questions of social equality. Socialists and feminists brought these issues to the fore and broadened the peace agenda to include problems of economic injustice and patriarchy. In recent decades social scientists and political theorists have made progress in verifying and explaining the components of the so-called Kantian triad – mutual democracy, economic interdependence, and international cooperation – as predicates of peace. Links have been discovered between gender equality and a lessening of violence. Unresolved political grievances and a lack of economic development have been identified as factors that contribute to armed conflict. Many questions remain unanswered, but progress has been made in understanding the causes of and cures for war.
Noble Peace Prize New Nominee: the Killer, the Occupier, the Oppressor Benjamin Netanyahu
