A Peace research agenda

Abstract

Peace researchers need an interdisciplinary research agenda. It should focus on how American foreign policy is made, how new policies gain acceptance, and whether membership‐based peace organizations have access to the policy making process. We must try to better understand the impact of the American peace movement. About 10 years ago, I began exploring this when I asked activists and analysts whether the peace movement was serious about trying to influence public policy, and whether it was organized effectively to do so. I also wondered whether the tactics used were more likely to be expressive—aimed at making the actors feel better, or instrumental—aimed at changing policies. These and other questions were asked as part of a 1988 comprehensive national survey of organizations working for peace, and by a 1992 followup survey. Besides these questions, I've also been concerned with the external environment of U.S. peace movement organizations. What part of the foreign policy process is open to citizen‐group input? What groups have access to this decision making process? How can peace movement membership organizations gain access to the foreign policy decision making process? What constitutes “success” in influencing policy and how can it be measured? Put more sharply, how could one analyze the hypothesis that a tight elite controls foreign policy, and that peace‐movement organizations have little influence on this policy nexus? In 1987, a political scientist, Robert Lebow, argued that peace researchers must focus on how to get policies adopted by the relevant decision makers. As researchers, he claimed we know much more about the causes of conflicts and wars, and about measures to reduce tensions than we do about how to translate them into policy. According to Lebow, large grants go to diagnosis instead of therapy: overcoming the obstacles to good policymaking receives the least funding. This remains the case today.