Abstract
Peace studies is an interdisciplinary field encompassing systematic research and teaching on the causes of violence and war and the conditions of peace. It focuses on the causes of increase and decrease in violence, the conditions associated with those changes, and the processes by which those changes happen. While there is disagreement over the exact content of the field and even over the definition of peace, most would agree that peace studies began to be identified as a separate field of inquiry during the first few decades after World War II. This article examines debates over the conceptualization of peace, relationships between peace studies and other fields of study, and the evolution of peace studies. It argues that there have been three waves of peace studies, beginning approximately in the late 1940s/early 1950s, the 1970s, and the 1980s, with a period of stasis in the decade after the end of the Cold War and a possible fourth wave after 9/11. It argues that the relationship between peace and justice remains a central question in the field.
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