Peace
Peace
Social science has uncovered more knowledge about war than about peace, just as psychology probably has yielded more insights into negative deviance (such as mental illness) than into positive deviance (such as creativity). Unfortunately, studies tend to be focused on wars as units of analysis rather than on periods of peace, and there is a tendency to define peace simply as “nonwar.” Thus, peace thinking has had a tendency to become Utopian and to be oriented toward the future; it has been speculative and value contaminated rather than analytical and empirical. It is conceivable that this might change if research were to be focused more on peace than on war.
Two concepts of peace should be distinguished:negative peace, defined as the absence of organized violence between such major human groups as nations, but also between racial and ethnic groups because of the magnitude that can be reached by internal wars; and positive peace, defined as a pattern of cooperation and integration between major human groups. Absence of violence should not be confused with absence of conflict: violence may occur without conflict, and conflict may be solved by means of nonviolent mechanisms. The distinction between these two types of peace gives rise to a fourfold classification of relations between two nations: war, which is organized group violence; negative peace, where there is no violence but no other form of interaction either and where the best characterization is “peaceful coexistence”;positive peace, where there is some cooperation interspersed with occasional outbreaks of violence; and unqualified peace, where absence of violence is combined with a pattern of cooperation.
The conception of peace as “nonwar” is neither theoretically nor practically interesting: as used, for instance, in describing the relationship that obtains between Norway and Nepal, it can often be explained in terms of a low level of interaction resulting from geographical distance and thus will hardly be identified by many as an ideal relation worth striving for. For peace, like health, has both cognitive and evaluative components: it designates a state of a system of nations, but this state is so highly valued that institutions are built around it to protect and promote it. It is the concept of positive peace that is worth exploring, especially since negative peace is a conditio sine qua non and the two concepts of peace may be empirically related even though they are logically independent.
In the absence of what one might call solid empirical research and a coherent peace theory, the concept of peace can best be explicated by means of an examination of peace thinking. Just as there has been no lack of attention paid to war (Sorokin 1937-1941; Wright 1942; Richardson 1960a), so there is no scarcity of peace plans (Wynner & Lloyd 1944; Hemleben 1943; Doob I960; Hinsley 1963; Murty & Bouquet 1960), and an extensive typology would be needed to do full justice to most of the latter. The approach here will be to present the outlines of such a typology, and to bring the insights and knowledge of social science to bear upon some of these ideas. For peace is a problem of social organization, and the theory of peace and war will someday be subsumed under the general theory of social organization.
A typology of peace plans . A major axis for the classification of any peace plan is the level of organization that it singles out for reform. The problem of peace, in the mind of a person proposing something, can be located at any of five levels: the level of the isolated individual; the level of human groups; the level of human societies or nations; the level of the international system of nations; and the emerging level of a world state. For simplicity, the first three can be collapsed, leaving only three levels of peace plans: the subinternational, the international, and the level of the world state.
Of these three major types of peace plans, the first is not oriented toward the international system at all, whereas the other two are, but in very different ways. Plans that focus on the international system seek to preserve the essential characteristics of the present system of nation-states while organizing it in such a way that it will be stabilized at some level of interaction that can be characterized as “peaceful.” Those who seek a world state take for granted that some kind of integration is a necessary condition and ask how this integration can be stabilized in favor of peace. Obviously, the world-state approach is oriented toward both positive and negative peace, whereas the focus on the international system asks less of the system in terms of positive peace as long as only negative peace is obtained.
Within each class of models there are a number of more specific ideas; we shall mention some of particular importance. All of them take their point of departure from one specific variable used to characterize the system, and the model is identified with one particular value of that variable.
Subinternational peace plans
There are several well-known approaches at the subinternational level, and although they play a minor role in contemporary thinking about peace, they should be mentioned because of their prevalence. The basic idea of intrahuman approaches to peace is that intergroup, and also interhuman, conflicts are nonrealistic conflicts (Coser 1956) and, more particularly, projections of intrahuman conflicts. Hence, if man could be freed from more of his inner conflicts, he would behave in a less aggressive manner at the international level. Past generations’ techniques of freeing individuals from internal conflicts depended on religious conversion, whereas in contemporary societies psychotherapy is more frequently called for—if not for the whole population, at least for its leaders, and if not for its present leaders, at least as a screening device for future leaders (Klineberg 1964).
Interhuman approaches to peace emphasize the idea of projection of interhuman rivalry onto higher levels of human organization and, more positively, the idea that training in peaceful conflict resolution at lower levels may be transferred to higher levels, including the international level. Life in the family, at school, at work, or in associations may be seen as possible training grounds, particularly for those who are to become world leaders.
Likewise, intrasocietal approaches to peace emphasize the idea of projection: societies that are especially conflict-ridden will use external aggression as a means to force internal cohesion. This approach also includes the idea that some political systems are more peace-loving than others; more particularly, great importance is given to a fair distribution of the wealth of a nation to its inhabitants.
The major objection to these subinternational approaches is, of course, that there is a confusion of levels of analysis. Wars between nations take place at the international level; this level is sui generis and requires analyses and reforms at that level. Lower levels may be of some importance, but their impact is likely to suffer a quick decrease as one moves into the foreign offices and other centers of international policy decision making. This is not to deny the possible importance of screening applicants for key positions in the international system in order to prevent an accumulation of frustration that may be converted into aggression among important decision makers. This proposal assumes that clinical psychology is further advanced in diagnosis and prognosis than in the cure of the mental deviant. And it is probably also true that the best training ground for desired types of behavior is in real-life situations that approximate the kind of situations in which decision makers work.
As for the intrasocietal approach, a study by Michael Haas (1965) shows that it has so far failed to produce very significant correlations between intrasocietal structure and external behavior. There is some evidence that democratic societies are less belligerent and also that more developed societies are more belligerent. The latter is confirmed by a study from the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, based on Quincy Wright’s data (Broch & Galtung 1966). Moreover, there is nothing that seems to confirm the widely held idea that a major increase in the standard of living of the world population or a fairer distribution of the fruits of man’s labor would contribute significantly to a more peaceful world. A better distribution may solve internal problems but at the same time free resources for external aggression.
International peace systems
Various suggestions for international peace plans are both theoretically and practically more promising than those that focus on the subinternational level.
Based on distribution of power
Most peace thinking has centered on the problem of how power shall best be distributed among the nations of the world. Theories relating to this are usually marred by the neglect of other kinds of power than coercive power; influence potential in its most general sense is rarely considered. If we stick to this tradition of studying the distribution of military power, there are four major models of peace.
The first model is that of minimum equality,which is based on the theory that the international system is best served by making power the monopoly of one nation or system, just as it is monopolized by some statuses in the intranational system. Examples are the Pax Romana, Pax Ecclesiae, andPax Britannica—and the contemporary efforts to establish a Pax Americana or a Pax Sovietica before the stalemate was crystallized in the idea of a system of peaceful coexistence.
The second model focuses on maximum equality,or what is usually referred to as a “balance of power” (Kaplan 1957), in the sense that no nation or alliance is strong enough to defeat another nation or alliance. A modern version is the “balance of terror,” in which a nation may defeat other nations, but only at the risk of being completely destroyed itself. War becomes impossible under the balance of mutual destruction of a Pax Atomica: the risks are too great.
A third model views military powers as stabilized at a low level; this refers to all kinds of armscontrol efforts, especially those that have taken place from the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 to the present day, including contemporary thinking that aims at subtracting from a Hobbesianhelium omnium contra omnes both some means of violence and some objects of violence. The idea is to rule out general and complete war.
Finally, there is the model that views power asstabilized at a zero level; this refers to the general (all nations) and complete (all weapons) disarmament advocated by pacifists. Pacifism asserts that this state may be obtained unilaterally by the effect of example, because weapons become meaningless when they do not encounter similar weapons, and by the refusal of soldiers to use arms, as well as by governmental decisions.
Where the model of minimum equality is concerned, there might perhaps be agreement among nations about the appointment of a police nation in the world but not about its consequences—i.e., that coercive power usually will be accompanied by other kinds of influence. The police nation, it may be feared, will abuse its power and impose its value system and sociopolitical system on other nations. This would be acceptable if there were a general value consensus, in which case the system would be close to one of the many world peace systems described below.
The major difficulty in the model of maximum equality seems to be that the system, although in momentary equilibrium, is not in stable equilibrium. It is based on the relative evaluation of two power potentials, and since military power is manydimensional (because it consists of many weapons systems), this evaluation may be far from consensual. There will always be room for the idea that one’s own power is not sufficiently developed. Thus, the basis is laid for arms races, and it is difficult to see any good theoretical justification for the thesis that there will be points of stability—for instance, that major technical breakthroughs will not occur (Richardson 1960a; Galtung 1964a). The need for sufficient retaliatory power after an enemy’s first strike also makes the terror balance unstable. Overkill capacity in peace is no argument against a continued arms race; what matters is what is left after the first strike.
One major difficulty in the model that focuses on arms control is the arbitrariness of all border lines between permissible and illegitimate weapons. For such border lines to be consensually accepted, they must be protected by some kind of discontinuity (Schelling 1960), such as the clear line that existed between conventional and nuclear weapons before the overlap in destructive power became too conspicuous with the introduction of the variety of tactical atomic weapons. Thus, such agreements are likely to be highly technical, difficult to understand, easy to evade, and difficult to supervise.
Where the model of general and complete disarmament is concerned, one major objection is its failure to consider the need for countervailing power. One evader of an agreement may dominate the total system if he has an absolute weapon at his disposal. For this reason, general and complete disarmament can preserve peace only if the distribution of power in the system accords with the minimum-equality model (or with one of the world peace systems, discussed below), or if provision is made in the system for the effective use of nonmilitary forms of power (economic sanctions, nonmilitary defense systems, etc.) against those who evade disarmament agreements. It should be emphasized, however, that there is no reason to believe that weapons, once they exist, will have to be used. Any city has in its hardware stores and its pharmacies more than enough weapons and poisons to provide for overkill capacity, and this weaponry is usually not very well protected. Nevertheless, it is not usually abused, and the reasons for this may also become operative at the international level.
Based on organization of conflicts
The second general type of international peace plan focuses on the organization of conflicts. The basic model here is the crisscross model, which is based on the idea that a system is strengthened, not weakened, the more conflicts it harbors, provided all these conflicts do not divide the units the same way. If two nations are allies in one conflict (for instance, between East and West, in the language of the cold war), they may nevertheless be antagonists in another conflict (for instance, between rich and poor nations), and this subjects them to cross pressures. The effects of cross pressures are a tendency toward withdrawal and neutrality, or nonalignment; the development of multiple loyalties that prevent complete identification and involvement in any conflict; and a tendency to serve as a channel of communication between the groups that are not exposed to cross pressure.
A major weakness of this theory is that one conflict will probably be defined as more salient than the other, so that the crisscross effect will be reduced. Another weakness is that if both conflicts are concerned with struggle for rank (for instance, political and economic rank), then nations that are high on one and low on the other will be in “rank disequilibrium” and will probably feed much aggressiveness into the system (Galtung 1964b).
Based on individual loyalty conflicts
Whereas, according to the crisscross model, peace is obtained when nations are caught in cross pressures, other peace models imply that the violence potential of nations is reduced when divided loyalties are induced in individuals. One such plan seeks to manipulate multiple national loyalties: the idea is to impede conflict polarization by institutionalizing, preferably across potential conflict border lines, secondary and primary relations between individuals from different nations. In practice, the suggestions are many: for example, mixed marriages, exchanges of all kinds (children, youths, students, professionals, politicians), and increased knowledge and empathy.
A second plan seeks to build crosscutting organizational loyalties. The division of the world into about 130 nations and territories provides, roughly, an exhaustive and mutually exclusive division of mankind. But it is also divided into nearly two thousand international organizations, which provide many individuals with other focuses of identification, although this division is far from exhaustive (and not exclusive either). With increased communication, geographical distance decreases in importance; thus, organizational identification may gradually gain in importance relative to national identification and eventually provide a multiple loyalty that would make it difficult to organize individuals in wars against their peers.
Probably the only major objection to the idea of multiple national loyalties is that it may be of relatively low significance, given the conformity of most people to the calls of their national leaders. However, the idea of crosscutting organizational loyalties raises some important theoretical issues. An organization is built around values but may span a wide spectrum of geography—possibly the whole world. Conversely, a nation is built around a territory, usually based on geographical contiguity, but may span a wide spectrum of value orientations if it is of the pluralist variety. However, there is also the classical idea of the nation-state, which is both homogeneous in values and contiguous in territory and in which the inhabitants are protected against violent internal ideological conflicts because of cultural homogeneity. (Belgium and India provide examples of what may happen when this condition does not obtain.) This internal homogeneity is bought at the expense of heterogeneity between nations, which means that complete identification with the nation-state yields a tremendous conflict potential. And this is also the case with complete identification with the organization, as long as geographical proximity means something. People seem to want others to share their values, and in a world divided into organizations they would not be protected against the proselytizing efforts of rival organizations by the walls set up by the nation-state. Hence, where identification is concerned, the most peaceful world is probably found at an intermediate point, with most people sharing their loyalty equally between the two focuses or some identifying with the national focus and some with the organizational.
Based on degree of homology
Homology between nations—the extent to which they are similar in social and political structure, so that each institution and status in nation A has its “opposite number” in nation B—has been singled out as a factor of importance. There are two models of peace based on this concept. In the models ofminimum homology nations are as different as possible, in the sense that they have different value structures; thus, they will not compete for the same scarce values but can establish a very specific pattern of interdependence—a kind of symbiosis based on complementarity. On the other hand, where maximum homology prevails, nations are as similar as possible in social structure and value structure, thus facilitating diffuse interaction and creating a value consensus. It is argued that the more similar nations are in terms of their culture (including language), the lower is the probability of misunderstanding. The theoretical basis is the thesis of “value homophily”—i.e., that similarity tends to produce liking and interaction.
Again, it is difficult to see that there is any guarantee for peace in any of these theories. In particular, there is no basis for equating value consensus with absence of conflicts: value consensus means that the same objects are valued positively, and if the objects are scarce, the probability of conflicts is higher, not lower. Misunderstandings may cause conflicts, and they may also conceal them. And where minimum homology is concerned, as between the European powers and the political systems found in Africa and America at the time they were opened up to European penetration, it seems quite likely that one nation will prevail over the other—militarily or culturally—and unlikely that the symbiosis will be stable. But again there may be a curvilinear relationship at work: it may be that at a very high level of mutual penetration, values are shared to the extent that a basis for cooperation in pursuing the same goals, such as high productivity or happiness, may be present. To the extent that this is the case, it means that on the path to maximum homology there is a danger zone to pass, where the pursuit of goals has still not been coordinated and the goals are both consensual and scarce.
Based on international stratification
We may assume that international stratification—that is, the ranking of nations as high or low on such rank dimensions as size, population, power, natural resources, income per capita, cultural level, social level, and urbanization—is multidimensional and that there is a tendency toward rank equilibrium,in the sense that nations tend to divide into those that are high and those that are low on most or many dimensions. The problem, as for systems of individuals, is how the interaction between nations is regulated; there seem to be two models that focus on regulating “class conflict” at the international level.
First, there is the feudal type of system, where there is a high level of interaction at the top and alow level at the bottom—that is, the international system is tied together at the top by trade, diplomacy, and all other kinds of exchange. Although there is very little interaction at the bottom, there may be some from top to bottom. This system is easily controlled by the wealthy nations; if there is a consensus among them, the system may achieve a stability similar to that of the caste system or of slave societies.
By contrast, in what may be called the modern system there is an equal level of interaction at the top and at the bottom: the “underdogs” unite in organizations that make it possible for them to countervail the influence of the “top dog” nations. Thus, one might envisage a kind of trade union of small nations that is able to strike against the big nations, organize embargoes to obtain better prices for raw materials, etc., and thus force upon the world a more equitable distribution of world output. Over time the importance of class lines may then decrease in the international system.
Again, there are many objections to these models. Most people today would probably object to the feudal system on a purely ideological basis. There is also the important difference between intranational and international levels of organization: the upper class in a national society is often marked by solidarity in its relationship to the lower classes, whereas upper-class nations in the international system have a higher tendency to fight among themselves (which is just one more expression of the lack of value and system integration at the international level). Thus, the international system tends to be divided into subsystems, each of which consists of one big power and its satellites, with a feudal structure both within and between these subsystems.
The modern system seems more promising, but that may only be because it has never really been tried. One objection is that it lends itself readily to international class warfare of poor and small nations against rich and big nations. A likely variant is that one big power will try to win over as many as possible of the satellites of the other big powers and become the leader of these satellites in such class warfare. Another objection is that the modern system will probably have less rank equilibrium, that is, there will be more nations that can be ranked high on one dimension of the international stratification system and low on one or more of the others. This will increase the potential for international aggression.
The latter objection, at least, seems consistent with current developments: the “revolution of rising expectations” that is taking place has lifted some lower-class nations over temporary disequilibria, such as being rich but not powerful, toward new positions of equilibrium at a higher level, such as being both rich and powerful after capital has been converted into weapons and weapons into territorial gains. Thus, as in the case of models based on degree of homology, there is probably a curvilinear relationship at work between the system elements, which could mean that the period ahead will be a particularly difficult one.
Based on degree of interdependence
Some models of peace are based on interdependence between nations. Interdependence, or interaction where some kind of positive value is exchanged between the parties to the interaction, may vary in frequency (how often), volume (how much is transferred), and scope (variety of value exchanged). Trade between two nations is a good example of how all three can vary independently. There are two principal models based on this concept. The model of minimum interdependence envisages a world where each nation is autonomous and self-sufficient and no nation intervenes or interferes in the affairs of any other nation; this is a clear case of negative peace, where positive peace is explicitly ruled out (Burton 1965). On the other hand, in the model of maximum interdependence all pairs of nations have maximum interaction in terms of frequency, volume, and scope. The idea is that all pairs of nations would be protected from rupture and violent conflict by the web of affiliations spun between them; positive interaction with other nations would be built into each nation in such a way that wars would be too costly. Thus, all nations should enjoy relations somewhat like those between Norway and Sweden.
A major difficulty with these two models lies in their failure to deal with the essential characteristics of violence. Violence in interindividual relationships seems to be at a maximum under the conditions of either maximum or minimum scope of interaction. In the case of maximum interaction, which sociologists would refer to as “diffuse interaction,” conflicts may lead to extreme patterns of violence, as seen in civil wars or in enmity between former friends (Coser 1956). In the case of no interdependence, empathy serves less as a protection against application of extreme violence. In general, most violent conflicts are both preceded and accompanied by polarization of attitudes (Coleman 1957); in this case polarization is already built into the system. Thus, we are probably justified in assuming a U-shaped relationship betweenscope and intensity of conflicts, which would mean that precisely the two values singled out in these two models—that is, the values of minimum and maximum interdependence—are the most dangerous ones.
The probability of conflict, however, may be highest when the interaction is specific—that is, limited in scope but not down to zero—but in that case conflicts are most likely to be regulated by contract and rational calculation, so that they will be less intense. With very diffuse interaction between nations, conflicts along one dimension of interaction may be dampened by the other dimensions, but they may also be reinforced and escalated; moreover, even if this is improbable, the disutility of open conflict is high. This does not mean that there does not exist a level of interdependence so high that the probability of all-out conflicts is almost zero, but on its path toward that point the international system will have to pass through dangerous zones of nonzero probability and high intensity of conflict. Moreover, statistics on wars show that they are highly correlated with the degree of interdependence between nations (Wright 1942); only rarely are wars directed toward complete strangers. Finally, it should be emphasized that much of what is called “economic development” is an effort to obtain self-sufficiency and hence to reduce the need for interdependence.
Based on functional cooperation
Interaction or interdependence that implies only some kind of exchange should not be confused with functional cooperation, which implies that the parties together produce something they may then share. Coproduction is one form of functional cooperation, as when several nations combine resources in order to produce something really big, such as a supersonic commercial airplane or a gigantic development project. There is good reason to believe that, at the level of individuals, functional cooperation on equal terms is one of the factors most efficient in producing integration (Berelson & Steiner 1964, p. 513). This hypothesis of functional cooperation has often been put forward in connection with nations (by President Kennedy, for instance, in connection with the moon race). The idea, then, is that any specific cooperation provides training for more comprehensive cooperation.
World peace systems
All of the following models of world systems have in common a certain resemblance to a nationstate, usually one held to be successful by the person who puts forward the proposal. The idea is that since many nation-states have obtained reasonable security and equity for their inhabitants, there must be something in their structure that is worth copying at the world level. Proposals vary, but they all have in common the idea of a center of decision making with means at its disposal to obtain compliance from the constituent units. Of the many dimensions that can be used to describe such models only three will be discussed.
First, models of world systems can be described in terms of the type of unit on which the system is based. When the basic unit is the individual, the world system is conceived as a world state, with a very low level of autonomy for intermediate levels, such as the nation. With nations as units the world system becomes a confederation, with the nation as a political level interposed between the individual and the government. Congruence between the authority structures of nation and confederation may have a stabilizing effect on the system as a whole (Eckstein 1961).
The difference between these two models is rarely argued in terms of their relevance for peace. Rather, the world confederation is seen as an intermediate step in a more gradualist approach toward the world state or as a system with the built-in protection of some internal autonomy. Also, there is the idea that border lines should be preserved to some extent, precisely because they slow down cultural diffusion and influence and thus contribute to the preservation of sociocultural pluralism—which many fear might disappear in a world state because of the homogenizing effect of a strong nucleus of decision making. But cultural differences in a pluralist system may serve as focuses of conflicts or, at least, as focuses for prejudices and mild forms of discrimination. The costs of pluralism would therefore have to be calculated in terms of potential for conflict.
Models of world systems can also be described in terms of their scope and domain. By “scope” we refer to the variety of needs satisfied by the world system; and by “domain,” to how many receive need satisfaction from the system.
Classification in terms of these two system functions produces two basic models. The first rates high on scope but low on domain. It is the form taken by the regional federation, which gives much in terms of scope to its members but is exclusive in terms of membership; a leading example is the European Economic Community. The second model rates high on domain but low on scope. It is the form taken by the functionally specific organization, which sets no limits, at least in principle, to the number and type of people whose needs it may serve but is able to do this only because both the needs and the type of service provided are of a limited type; an example would be any specialized agency of the UN.
A true world system has to rate high on both of these dimensions because it cannot exclude any class of units, whether nations or individuals, if it wants to be universal, and it also has to offer a wide variety of goods and values if it is to be seen as a source of gratification. Thus, the two models just described must be seen as steps on the road toward a closer analogy with the nation-state (E. Haas 1964). The world system would rate high on domain and high on scope; it would be a true world state or federation, which excluded nobody and tried to satisfy a wide variety of needs that were formerly satisfied at subordinate levels (Deutsch 1966). No agreement exists on whether the regional or the functionally specific model bears more promise as a step toward this full-fledged world system. There is the pragmatic point of view that the regional model is needed as a training ground in systems that are low on scope, and the functionally specific model in systems that are low on domain. But there are also the arguments that the bigger the unit, in terms of number of members, the bigger will be the wars involving that unit and that regionalism is likely to unite upper-class nations (because they have the most interaction experience) and thus contribute to a feudal world pattern.
Nature of compliance systems
A political system is meaningless unless there is a relatively high degree of compliance with a high proportion of centrally decreed norms. According to Etzioni (1961), there are three basic types of compliance mechanisms: the normative, the contractual, and the coercive [SeeSocial Control, article onOrganizational Aspects]. This typology can usefully be applied here.
Normative compliance means simply that there is an internalized desire to comply; behavior that is institutionally necessary is internalized as a need disposition in the personal system. The many suggestions for a world system based on this type of compliance focus on two main ideas: creating loyalty to the central agency on the grounds that it provides many services; and creating loyalty on a more ideological basis by a suitable use of symbols, such as the idea of the brotherhood of all men. A basic idea here is the democratic idea that normative compliance is promoted by a pattern of representative and direct democracy on the world level; another idea is that of creating a “welfare world” after the model of the welfare state.
Contractual compliance, by contrast, is built into the institutional structure by making compliance pay, just as an employee is motivated to perform his tasks because he knows he will receive a salary. In the same way, it is argued, nations and individuals can be motivated to perform services for the international community, provided that the latter gives them something in return. They may or may not combine this with a subjective feeling of loyalty; what is essential is that they should perform according to a quid pro quo principle. The system is based on exchange, and disagreements can be resolved by mediation, arbitration, and adjudication, as well as by a suitable clearing system for the exchanges.
Coercive compliance is, of course, compliance based on the use or threat of force, especially against members defined as aggressors. At the international level the model is the deviance-detection-con vie tion-adjudieation-sanctioning scheme borrowed from the control systems of national societies. International peace based on coercive compliance is enforced by such institutions as those provided for in the UN Charter: observer corps, peace-keeping forces of different kinds, the World Court, and sanctions of all kinds built into a system of international law.
Particularly important is the search for sanctions, whether economic or diplomatic, that stop short of war (Galtung 1965). This is the legal approach to the problem of international conflict management; it presupposes a nucleus of global institutions and is inconceivable at the purely international level unless one nation takes upon itself the task of acting as a third party in the international system. The problems of the legal approach, which is essentially an effort to obtain predictability by codifying international behavior, can also be analyzed in terms of the three modes of compliance. Thus, for legal rules to be adhered to, normative compliance is not strictly necessary, but some element of internalization built around important symbols in the system is an important positive contribution. To obtain contractual compliance, legal rules must be equitable and reasonable; to coerce, they must be institutionalized by means of credible negative sanctions.
To be implemented, all of these ideas need a central agency, whether it takes the form of the concert of Europe, the League of Nations, the United Nations, or some other form. The central agency will have to do what is needed to build up a basis for all three types of compliance, whether it takes the form of information or propaganda and manipulation of symbols, the administration of services in such a way as to buy loyalty, provision of a clearinghouse of exchanges of all kinds in order to make interdependence under a central organization pay, or the administration of enforcement mechanisms. Crucial for all three types of compliance is the extent to which the central world agency is able to compete with other levels of organization, such as nations, which provide the same kind of basis for compliance but possibly also promote compliance with norms that conflict with those of the world government. It should also be pointed out that any political system will probably need all three types of compliance. Normative compliance alone may not be enough in the long run; the value of a “good conscience” will show a rapidly diminishing return. The right behavior must somehow be made to pay, and if the system runs out of resources for rewards, it may have to resort to force. But force without some basis in normative commitment is tantamount to terror, and terror is notoriously ineffective in the long run.
Peace movements
The tremendous disparity between the different approaches to peace that have been described may be interpreted as a sign of basic confusion in thinking on the topic. But it is more likely to be a reflection of the complexity of the problem itself. It may be that, in this respect, peace is somewhat like health: the phenomenon is extremely difficult to grasp as a whole, and one’s approach therefore tends to be determined by the kind of peace—or health—he is interested in obtaining. Clearly, there are good reasons for these differences of interest; in fact, a peace plan can be classified not only according to its content but also according to who put it forward. This may be a person or an organization, located either in the decision-making nucleus of the world system or in the center of a society or on the periphery of a society. If the last is the case, the proposal is likely to bear some of the imprints of marginality: an absolutist and moralistic, as opposed to a gradualist and pragmatic, approach; a tendency toward single-factor, as opposed to multiple-factor, thinking; and a tendency to confuse organizational levels, so that the training and capacity of the plan’s author are made to seem more important than the possible merits of the plan itself (Galtung 1966). Thus, psychologists will talk about personality and aggression, sociologists about conflict-inducing social structures, educators about the school as the pivotal element in peace building—and the result is the well-known collection of single-factor theories, around which one may construct an organization and rally together people who share the belief. Thus, almost all the theories referred to above have found their organizational expression.
On the other end are the decision makers in the center of society, who have a gradualist, pragmatic approach and employ multiple-factor thinking. In their effort not to confuse organizational levels their approach becomes so slow, so careful, and so withdrawn from the public eye, that the tension between center and periphery becomes high enough to produce impatience and conflict, leading to demonstrations, party formation, and other forms of protest. The result is the traditional dialogue between center and periphery. The periphery gradually becomes like the center as it gains in power and leaves a certain imprint on the total system; however, in turn, a new protest movement is created at the periphery. In other words, peace movements, like other social movements, follow the “church-sect” cycle. Since the periphery—the peace movement—is split into single-factor organizations, the world does not get a multiple-approach impact from the movement.
Historical development
The fact that there are around 1,500 groups working for disarmament and peace (International Peace/Disarmament Directory [1962] 1963) suggests, among other things, an enormous democratization of the struggle for peace; even though their total membership may be small, these organizations do provide open forums for expressions of public opinion. Such forums are relatively new. Although the organized peace movement can be said to have begun in the United States in 1815 (Angell 1935), it was not until 1843 that the first international peace congress was held (in London). The Nobel peace prize (instituted in 1897) also stimulated much interest in the problem of peace. The history of the award repays study. The Nobel Foundation Calendar of 19631964 (see Nobelstifteltsen, Stockholm, Prix Nobel)listed 59 prizes, of which 13 went to the United States, 8 to France, and 7 to Britain; thus, 3 countries took 46 per cent of the prizes, 12 other countries took 40 per cent, and the remaining 8 prizes went to institutions, such as the Red Cross. There is thus a Western bias in the geographical distribution of the Nobel prizes, and it is not surprising that the socialist countries have instituted their own prizes for peace, the best known being the Lenin prize.
The peace movement received a terrible shock when World War i proved how much stronger was attachment to the nation than adherence to internationalist and pacifist principles and how much stronger was the fear of the sanctions of one’s own government and compatriots than of the sanctions of fellow members of organizations. The resolutions passed at the Universal Peace Congress in Geneva in 1912 and at the congress of the Second Socialist International in Stuttgart in 1907 were strongly pacifist, but the weakness of the peace movement then is also its weakness today: loyalty to the peace movement is based on normative compliance alone, not on contractual or coercive compliance. In times of crises, only extremely idealistic or very peripherally located people are likely to remain faithful to their ideals. World War n provided the peace movement with a new abundance of examples of this fact. However, this does not mean that the peace movement has no impact. Indeed, it serves as an imperfect substitute for a foreign-policy national assembly, since public opinion probably has less influence on foreignpolicy than on domestic-policy decisions in many countries.
Peace research
Since the late 1950s and early 1960s there has been an intensification of the more academic study of peace and a drive toward profession alization of the peace movement (Galtung 1963). The Repertory on Disarmament and Peace Research Institutions lists close to one hundred institutions in twenty countries as being active in the field; and two scientific quarterlies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution (edited at the Center for Conflict Resolution, University of Michigan) and the Journal of Peace Research (edited at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo), are devoted to research in this interdisciplinary field.
One major difficulty with peace research is the problem whether the future will be a continuous extrapolation of the past or qualitatively different. For instance, it can be argued that the model for the disarmament process currently under discussion—the model that presupposes balance and control —probably has few, if any, counterparts in the history of the past. Another set of models for peace preservation, namely, balance-of-power models and collective security systems, have shown very severe limitations in the past. But can one assume that if a structure has not appeared in the past, it is because it is not viable or that if a structure has failed in the past, it will also fail in the future? Or if one studied how city-states and nation-states have successfully reduced their armaments in the past (probably more through normative and contractual than through coercive compliance), could this be a guide to future action? Acceptance of this simple inductive approach might mean that peace research would become merely a scientific-sounding pretext for imposing the past on the future.
Johan Galtung
[Directly related are the entriesDisarmament; International Conflict Resolution; Pacifism; War, article onThe Study of War. Other relevant material may be found inConflict; Diplomacy; Foreign Policy; Systems Analysis, article onInternational Systems; and in the biography ofRichardson.]
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