Patterns of Peace

This essay is partially based upon a section of my new book, The Transformation of Peace (London: Palgrave, 2005). I take responsibility for any errors in this essay.

Abstract

Different strategies are used to conceptualise peace in the literature on International Relations, peace and conflict studies. These have included strategies based upon the notion that peace is geographically contained, and constructed by race, identity, ideology, or power, and has universal qualities, although it is also utopian and unlikely to be fully achieved. What has developed more recently in the relevant literature is a hybrid version of peace—the liberal peace. This is universal, attainable, and dependent upon a specific methodology. The following essay outlines the main discursive characteristics associated with peace, and with the emergence of the concept of the liberal peace. It outlines the patterns of thought prevalent in the conceptualisation of peace, and their ontological and epistemological implications in the context of the liberal peace framework.

This essay is partially based upon a section of my new book, The Transformation of Peace (London: Palgrave, 2005). I take responsibility for any errors in this essay.

Thanks are due to Roland Bleiker, Costas Constantinou, Jason Franks, A.J.R. Groom, Antoinette Groom, Roger MacGinty, Mike Pugh, Ian Taylor, Peter Wallensteen, Alison Watson, Andrew Williams, and the many people in the field, from East Timor, Cambodia, D.R. Congo, to the Balkans, who were willing to discuss these ideas with me. Thanks are also due to two anonymous reviewers for their comments, the Leverhulme Trust and the Carnegie Trust for their financial support.

Notes

This essay is partially based upon a section of my new book, The Transformation of Peace (London: Palgrave, 2005). I take responsibility for any errors in this essay.

1. For two famous contributions on this, see Robert Cox, “Postscript 1985”, in Robert Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 242; R.B.J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

2. See Johan Galtung, “A Structural Theory of Imperialism”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 8 (1971), pp. 81–117.

3. For more on this notion of the binary as a key mechanism of positivist IR, see R.B.J. Walker, op. cit., esp. the introduction.

4. For an important study on this matter, see Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, The West, Civil Society, and the Construction of Peace (London: Palgrave, 2003).

5. See, for example, Karin Fierke, “Whereof we Can Speak, Thereof we Must Not be Silent: Trauma, Political Solipsism and War”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4 (2004), pp. 471–491.

6. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon, 1980), p. 30; Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Tavistock, 1972), p. 205.

7. Roland Bleiker, Popular Dissent, Human Agency, and Global Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), esp. the introduction.

8. For a detailed examination of these themes, see Oliver P. Richmond, The Transformation of Peace (London: Palgrave, 2005).

9. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (eds.), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (London: Lawrence & Wishart), pp. 56–59.

10. Rasmussen, op. cit., p. 16.

11. See Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave”, The Republic of Plato (trans. Francis MacDonald Cornford) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941).

12. This indicates a weak consensus between the United Nations, major states and donors, agencies, and NGOs that liberal peace should incorporate a market democracy, the rule of law and development. Moreover, all international intervention, both humanitarian and security oriented, should be contingent upon this. This consensus masks a deeper dissensus in terms of the application of resources, the use of force to establish the basis for such a reform, and the efficacy of different actors involved in the many roles this requires. For more on this see Oliver P. Richmond, “UN Peace Operations and the Dilemmas of the Peacebuilding Consensus”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 10, No.4 (2004), pp. 83–101; Oliver P. Richmond, “The Globalisation of Approaches to Conflict”, Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2004), pp. 129–150.

13. See, among others, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventative Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (New York: United Nations, 1992); Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Development: Report of the Secretary-General, A/48/935 (6 May 1994); Boutros-Ghali, “Supplement to An Agenda for Peace”, A/50/60, S.1995/1 (3 January 1995); Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Democratization, A/50/332 and A/51/512 (17 December 1996); Report of the Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change (New York: United Nations, 2004); World Bank Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit, Conflict Analysis Framework (World Bank, 26 August 2003); International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001).

14. See, for example, Paul Keal, European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous People (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

15. See, for example, Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky, The Real World Order (New Jersey: Chatham House, 1993), p. 3.

16. For an important contribution on this notion of orthodox theory and its implications, see Jason Franks, Rethinking the Roots of Terrorism (London: Palgrave, 2006).

17. See, for example, Roland Paris, At War's End (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 209.

18. For more on this see Felix Dodds and Tim Pippard, Human and Environmental Security (London: Earthscan, 2005).

19. See, for example, Jack S. Levy, “The Causes of War: A Review of Theories and Evidence”, in Philip E. Tetlock et al. (eds.), Behaviour, Society and Nuclear War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 88.

20. Sun Tzu, “The Use of Spies”, in The Art of War, ch. XIII (London: Penguin, 2003).

21. John Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions”, in International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1994, pp. 5–26.

22. Martin Ceadal, Thinking about Peace and War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 4.

23. This was exactly the fear underlying Keynes' thinking in his important criticism of the Versailles settlement, specifically in the context of the War Guilt Clause (Article 231) and the reparations to be paid by Germany. John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (London: Macmillan, 1920), esp. chs. V–VII.

24. See World Bank Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit, Conflict Analysis Framework (26 August 2003), p. 2.

25. See DFID, Conducting Conflict Assessment: Guidance Notes (January 2002).

26. See Simon Lawry-White, Review of the UK Government Approach to Peacebuilding, DFID Reports, EVSUM EC646 (London: DFID, September 2003).

27. This was highlighted by a series of interviews held at DFID and the FCO, in which it became clear that DFID was currently formulating its strategy whereas FCO specialists had a fairly clear idea of their agendas. See Personal Interviews with official sources in DFID and FCO, London (12–13 January 2004).

28. For more on this, see Richmond, The Transformation of Peace, op. cit., chs. 2 and 5.

29. John Keane, Global Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 2.

30. See, for example, Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars (London: Zed, 2001), p. 34; Paris, At War's End, op. cit., pp. 40–51.

31. For more on this concept, see Richmond, “UN Peace Operations and the Dilemmas of the Peacebuilding Consensus”, op. cit., pp. 83–101.

32. See, for example, the selection of case studies included in Paris, op. cit.

33. See Types 1–4 above.

34. For more on these implicit strands on peace inherent within the discipline, see Richmond, The Transformation of Peace, op. cit., esp. chs. 1 and 2.

35. Ibid., p. 217.

36. David Chandler, From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention (London: Pluto, 2002), p. 194; see also Michael Ignatief, Empire Lite: Nation-building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan (London: Vintage, 2003), p. 93.

37. Paris, op. cit., p. 209.

38. Ian Clark, The Post-Cold War Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 248.

39. Rasmussen, op. cit., p. 112.

40. For more on this see Duffield, op. cit., p. 34.

41. Ibid., p. 34.

42. Ibid., p. 52.

43. In this sense advocacy movements, epistemic communities, non-states actors, NGOs, and agencies are what Wallace and Josselin have described as “norm entrepreneurs” which privilege democracy, human rights and forms of development in their micro-level interventions as well as in their discourse in the realm of international relations. Daphne Josselin and William Wallace (eds.), Non-state Actors in World Politics (London: Palgrave, 2001), p. 253.

44. Note the enormous peacebuilding literatures now in circulation which focus upon the construction of the liberal state, and which may well become formalised if the proposed Peacebuilding Commission is ever established. See Report of the Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, A/59/565 (2 December 2004), pp. 261–269.

45. For an excellent discussion of governance, from which I take this definition, in the specific context of European security, see Mark Webber, Stuart Croft, J. Hobworth, Terry Terrif and Elke Krahmann, “The Governance of European Security”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2004), p. 4.

46. Ibid., p. 4.

47. See James Rosenau, “Governance, Order and Change in World Politics”, in James Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (eds.), Governance without Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 7.

48. For opposing and post-positivist views on this, see Preface to François Debrix and Cynthia Weber (eds.), Rituals of Mediation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), p. xv; Michael Dillon, “Culture, Governance, and Global Biopolitics”, in ibid., p. 135; Ronnie D. Lipschutz, “The Clash of Governmentalities: The Fall of the UN Republic and America's Reach for Imperium”, Exploring Imperium, University of Sussex (11 December 2002). For a key Foucauldian reading of governance, see Michel Foucault, “Governmentality”, in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), p. 103.

49. This is outlined in Robert Keohane's famous paper, “International Institutions: Two Approaches”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 4 (1988), p. 384.

50. Ibid., pp. 379–396.

51. See, in particular, Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Thomas Rise-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely”, International Organisation, Vol. 48, No. 2 (1994), pp. 185–214.

52. Of course, “threat assessment” and the identification of threats depend to a large extent on the priorities of the perceiver. The War on Terror, which has led to two actual wars and numerous skirmishes around the world, seems enormously to outweigh the threats unless one considers the fact that under threat is US ideological, military, political, and economic preponderance. Unfortunately, it is now a cliché to point out that more people die every day from easily preventable diseases and that similar resources have not been mobilised in this respect because there is little strategic threat to powerful states. A like cliché is the relative discrepancy in investment in arms and in peacebuilding.

53. For more on this, see Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means, Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization (London: Sage, 1996), p. viii.

54. See Johan Galtung, “A Structural Theory of Imperialism”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 8 (1971), pp. 81–117; Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), p. 15.

55. See, for example, the well-known arguments of Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections of the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).

56. David Campbell, Writing Security (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 72; Thomas Hylland Erikson, Ethnicity and Nationalism (London: Pluto Press, 1993), p. 124.

57. See, in particular, Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Collective Identity in a Democratic Community”, in Peter Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 357–399.

58. See Walker, op. cit.; Campbell, Writing Security, op. cit.

59. See, for example, John Williamson, “What Should the Bank Think about the Washington Consensus?”, Paper prepared as a background to the World Bank's World Development Report 2000 (1999), available: www.worldbank.org/research/journals/wbro/obsaug00/pdf/(6)Williamson.pdf; J. Stiglitz, More Instruments and Broader Goals: Moving towards the post Washington Consensus (Helsinki: UN University, 1998).

60. See, for example, Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism versus Democracy (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p. 10.

61. For more on “Orthodox terrorism discourses”, see Jason Franks, Rethinking the Roots of Terrorism (London: Palgrave, 2006).

62. For more on utopian, idealist, and realist thinkers and the problem of peace, see Oliver P. Richmond, Peace in International Relations Theory (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2007).

63. Herman Schmid, “Peace Research and Politics”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1968), p. 219.

64. Vivienne Jabri, Discourses on Violence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 149.

65. Ibid., pp. 145–167.

66. Richard Shapcott, “Cosmopolitan Conversations”, Global Society, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2002), p. 222.

67. Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics”, International Organisation, Vol. 46, No. 3 (1992), pp. 391–425. See also Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

68. Shapcott, op. cit., p. 222.

69. Ken Booth, “Security and Emancipation”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4 (1991), pp. 313–326.

70. See George Monbiot for an attempt to make this argument about emancipation and anarchy. George Monbiot, The Age of Consent (London: Perennial, 2004).

71. Stephen Hopgood, “Reading the Small Print in Global Civil Society”, Millennium, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2000), p. 10.

72. Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), p. 64.

73. Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-identity (Cambridge: Polity, 1991), p. 211.

74. See Oliver P. Richmond, Maintaining Order, Making Peace (London: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 192–200.

75. Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (trans. Georges Van Den Abeele) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), p. ix.

76. It is important to note that the notion of “cosmopolitan conflict resolution”, which has emerged partly as a response to the more critical work in peace and conflict studies such as this, has tried to modify the orthodox agenda of the field in order to respond to these criticisms. Effectively, however, cosmopolitan conflict resolution still fits fairly closely into the liberal peace agenda. For more on this, see Hugh Miall et al., Contemporary Conflict Resolution, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Polity, 2005).

77. John G. Ikenberry, After Victory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 116.

78. See, among others, Richard Falk, On Humane Governance (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998); Vivienne Jabri, op. cit., pp. 145–167.

79. See Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge, 1978), esp. the Introduction.

80. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983).

81. R.J. Rummel, The Just Peace (Beverly Hill: Sage, 1981), p. 11.

82. Raymond C. Kelly, Warless Societies and the Origins of War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), p. 108.

83. Ibid., p. 160. For another example, pertaining to the case of Cyprus, see Rebecca Bryant, Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus (London: I.B. Taurus, 2004); or on Sri Lanka, see Jonathan Spencer (ed.), Sri Lanka: History and the Roots of Conflict (London: Routledge, 1990).