Peace and conflict studies
Social science studying violent and nonviolent behaviours and associated structural mechanisms
Peace and conflict studies is a field of social science that identifies and analyses violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts (including social conflicts), to understand those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies, is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, based on achieving conflict resolution and dispute resolution at the international and domestic levels based on positive sum, rather than negative sum, solutions.
In contrast with strategic studies or war studies, which focus on traditionally realist objectives based on the state or individual unit level of analysis, peace and conflict studies often focuses on the structural violence, social or human levels of analysis.
Disciplines involved may include philosophy, geography, economics, psychology, communication studies, sociology, international relations, history, anthropology, religious studies, gender studies, law, and development studies as well as a variety of others. Relevant sub-disciplines of such fields, such as peace economics, may also be regarded as belonging to peace and conflict studies. The study of peace is also known as irenology.
Historical background
Peace and conflict studies is both a pedagogical activity, in which teachers transmit knowledge to students; and a research activity, in which researchers create new knowledge about the sources of conflict. Peace and conflict studies entails understanding the concept of peace which is defined as condition that ensures justice and social stability through formal and informal institutions, practices, and norms.
As pedagogical activity
Academics and students in the world's oldest universities have long been motivated by an interest in peace. American student interest in what we today think of as peace studies first appeared in the form of campus clubs at United States colleges in the years immediately following the American Civil War.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peace and conflict studies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.