History Of Peace Research Articles

The Revolutionary Potential of Peace History

The Revolutionary Potential of Peace History

Thinking about the Russian war on Ukraine and the future of peace history

AbstractMy contribution will explore how the Russian war on Ukraine could impact the evolution of peace history as a field. Drawing on various proposals to end the conflict, it will explain why peace historians should continue to do the work that they normally do such as describing grassroots activism against the war and how Ukrainians have used nonviolent tactics to resist the Russian occupation. But it will also explain why the war reinforces the need to spend more time exploring how the diverse peoples of the world have understood legitimate civic ordering and the acceptable use of violence at specific moments in time—a task necessary to undermine the historical falsehoods that Russians have used to justify their aggression against Ukraine. Finally, my contribution will grapple with the relationship between peace and military history, explaining why peace historians need to become more comfortable addressing what a country like Ukraine needs to do on the battlefield to survive as a nation and build a more just and peaceful world.

Peacemaking past & present: A syllabus

AbstractThis article discusses a seminar‐style course on peace history offered as an option in the general education program at Gwynedd Mercy University since the Spring 2020 semester. After describing the context that led to the development of the course, it outlines features of the course syllabus, such as course topics, assignments, and resources. It offers specific suggestions for reading material and other content, discussion threads, in‐class activities, options for short essays, and research paper topics. Instructors may find the syllabus helpful as a catalyst for developing ideas for their own course emphasizing peace as a theme in history or as a source for topics about peace to include piecemeal in syllabi in survey and other courses.

The Impact of Evoking Models of Peaceful Coexistence in The History of Islam, Achieving Moderation and Building Peace

Objectives: The research highlights Islam's dedication to protecting the rights of other religions and minorities. This commitment is exemplified in the preservation of Prophet Muhammad's agreement with the Jews in the Medina Charter, even in their absence during its signing. Additionally, Prophet Muhammad emphasized principles for coexistence, fostering a harmonious life without conflicts among diverse religions, ethnicities, or tribes. 
 Methods: This research adopts an advanced scientific writing approach, drawing from over forty narratives in Islamic history to explore peaceful coexistence. The accuracy of these narratives is ensured through cross-referencing with historical sources and current observations. The study is divided into two sections for a thorough review and analysis. 
 Results: Islam's rulings exhibit fairness towards non-Muslims, notably in the just treatment of Jews and the people of the covenant with granted rights. Societal cohesion relies on collaboration built on mutual understanding. Addressing global poverty necessitates embracing an Islamic financial system. Resolving conflicts and entrusting outcomes to Allah, adhering to the principle "To you, your religion, and to me, mine," is crucial. Vigilance against conspiracies under the banners of tolerance, religion, and equality is essential. 
 Conclusion: Islam demonstrates fairness towards non-Muslims, emphasizing justice for all. This is evident in its impartial treatment of Jews and covenant people, ensuring their religious rights and protection. Authorities worldwide, including those in Iraq, must adhere to Islamic law for peaceful coexistence. Embracing the Islamic financial system is crucial to addressing global poverty.

Cultivating Peace and Health at Community Health Centers.

Founded on a commitment to social justice and health equity, community health centers in the United States provide high-quality primary care to underserved populations and address social drivers of health disparities. Through an examination of two books on the history of community health centers, Peace & Health: How a Group of Small-Town Activists and College Students Set Out to Change Healthcare, by Charles Barber, and Community Health Centers: A Movement and the People Who Made It Happen, by Bonnie Lefkowitz, this essay provides insight into what it takes to center social justice in community-based health care organizations. As bioethics reorganizes itself around an emphasis on justice, scholars in bioethics have much to learn from colleagues in community health.

UNESCO's Tensions Project (1947–1957) on India and Israel: Peace research in an era of decolonization

AbstractIn the light of the Second World War, the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and decolonization in Asia, the newly established UN organization for education, science and culture (UNESCO) initiated a global research project in 1947. Its main task was to find out how tensions within and between societies can be explained and tackled to secure peace and social justice. Combining peace history with the global history of social sciences and global intellectual history, this article assesses the design and conduct of the Tensions Project in India and Israel at the crossroads of post‐fascism and post‐colonialism. It finds the reasons for the Project's limited impact in the contradictions between universal knowledge claims and local specificities, its over‐confidence in scientific solutions for social problems, interfering nation‐building in early postcolonial states, the limited comparability of research, and its neglect of political activism.

Issue Information

Peace & ChangeVolume 48, Issue 2 p. i-v ISSUE INFORMATIONFree Access Issue Information First published: 02 June 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/pech.12536AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume48, Issue2Special Issue: Struggling for Peace, Struggling for Justice: The 2021 Peace History Society Conference IssueApril 2023Pages i-v RelatedInformation

Struggling for peace, struggling for justice: The 2021 Peace History Society conference issue

Peace & ChangeEarly View GUEST EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION Struggling for peace, struggling for justice: The 2021 peace history society conference issue Jonathan Taylor Downs, Jonathan Taylor Downs Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USASearch for more papers by this authorMegan Neary, Megan Neary Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USASearch for more papers by this authorLeslie Whitmire, Corresponding Author Leslie Whitmire [email protected] Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Correspondence Leslie Whitmire, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorIan Christopher Fletcher, Ian Christopher Fletcher Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USASearch for more papers by this author Jonathan Taylor Downs, Jonathan Taylor Downs Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USASearch for more papers by this authorMegan Neary, Megan Neary Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USASearch for more papers by this authorLeslie Whitmire, Corresponding Author Leslie Whitmire [email protected] Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Correspondence Leslie Whitmire, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorIan Christopher Fletcher, Ian Christopher Fletcher Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USASearch for more papers by this author First published: 08 May 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/pech.12614Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

Notes on Authors

Peace & ChangeVolume 48, Issue 2 p. 161-162 NOTES ON AUTHORS Notes on Authors First published: 02 June 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/pech.12605Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume48, Issue2Special Issue: Struggling for Peace, Struggling for Justice: The 2021 Peace History Society Conference IssueApril 2023Pages 161-162 RelatedInformation

Reflections on a land acknowledgment: The 2021 Peace History Society conference and the territories of the Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) Nations

AbstractThe Peace History Society's biennial conference, virtual in October 2021, was organized in Georgia. The land acknowledgment offered at that event recognized the dispossession and expulsion of the Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) Nations from their lands in that state in the 1830s. This essay reflects on the significance of this acknowledgment and on further steps that can be taken to include and engage with Indigenous peoples and perspectives.

RonaldEdsforth, ed. A Cultural History of Peace, Six Volumes. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.

Peace & ChangeEarly View BOOK REVIEW Ronald Edsforth, ed. A Cultural History of Peace, Six Volumes. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Michael Clinton, Corresponding Author Michael Clinton [email protected] Gwynedd Mercy UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Michael Clinton, Corresponding Author Michael Clinton [email protected] Gwynedd Mercy UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 18 January 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/pech.12585Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

Abolishing Military and Cultivating Pacifism in Costa Rica: Reflective but Limited Peace?

Existing literature on peace, security and civil-military relations in Latin America only recently recognises the historical institutional sources of Costa Rican exceptionalism. While the Cold War's security predicament and the military dictatorship are common antecedents for most Central American states, Costa Rican demilitarisation and pacifism origins are unique and incomparable. Rather than treating post-1948 civil war development as exceptionalism, this paper seeks to normalise their success. The paper examines the political development of Costa Ricans in the 1950s and whether José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer's historic decision to permanently abolish the military after the war helped to explain the institutionalisation process of organic civilian peace. While Costa Rican decisions to abandon its defence rights are always romanticised as "progressive" and an anomaly during the Cold War. The reality of relations between military abolishment, pacifism and democratic peace is multidimensional and complex. To perpetuate illogical pacificism reflections from Costa Rica in the 1950s and prescribes into present arguments for global democratic peace is somewhat imprecise. Drawing from years of research on Security in Latin America, this article reinvigorates Costa Rican exceptionalism. It analyses the cultivation of pacificism of those that have made the right choices in the face of adverse circumstances. Considering the historical institutional approach in researching local peace history, the paper illustrates a critical juncture that set peculiar peace formation, the path-dependent that ends the war, and the eventual decision to abolish the military in Costa Rica. The path dependence on national progress in education, health, and productivity only confirmed the unique political trajectory of Costa Rica, wherein they cannot be easily replicated or comparable. Understanding this distinctiveness should serve as a reminder of any renewed debate of Costa Rican exceptionalism in Central American security or democratic peace theory in liberal peacebuilding.

A hostile reputation: A social network approach to interstate hostility

State-level decisions to initiate militarized conflicts are the result of various factors, ranging from geographic proximity to the previous actions of potential foes. However, we know little about how the reputations of hostile actions shape future conflict and whether they vary for different types of country pairs. Through the adoption of a social network perspective, this research examines the role of post-Cold War hostility on the likelihood of future conflicts using the Militarized Interstate Dispute data from the Correlates of War project. We apply temporal exponential random graph models to evaluate whether the previous hostility levels of a country can determine future patterns of interstate conflict. Additionally, we consider how this association varies based on whether a country’s experience with an adversary is direct (a result of previous conflict with the adversary) or indirect (based on extra-dyadic disputes). Consistent with previous research, results suggest that pairs of countries with a direct history of hostile actions are more likely to fight in the future. However, in absence of this shared history, states are less likely to initiate conflict with those that have a particularly hostile or peaceful history, and instead target adversaries with middling levels of previous hostility.

The war in Ukraine: Perspectives from peace history—A preliminary roundtable

The February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine raises vital questions for peace activists and for those who study efforts to provide peaceful alternatives to international conflict. Five frequent contributors to Peace & Change present brief analyses of the current tragic circumstances in Ukraine, and international reactions to these circumstances, based on perspectives gleaned from peace activism and from studies of peace history.

International Law and Global Politics in a Post-Pandemic World: Homo Sapiens?

This article discusses the Coronavirus pandemic: A deep wound destined, sooner or later, to heal, or instead sow the seed of a global revolution? The first part examines the history of war and peace among nations to propose the idea of an International Court of Justice endowed with compulsory jurisdiction as the first step towards the creation of a world State. The second part further considers a changed New Global Order in the face of crises.

Famous space family has a surprisingly peaceful history

Famous space family has a surprisingly peaceful history

It’s a Trap! Re-Thinking Samuel Moyn’s Humane Beyond the North Atlantic

Abstract Samuel Moyn’s latest book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, offers a compelling re-reading of the history of the laws of war not as the precursors of international humanitarian law, but as enablers of what he calls “inhumane war”. Instead of advancing the cause of humanization of war, Moyn argues in favour of pacificism and the abolition of war in its entirety. And yet, Moyn’s decision to tell his history through two interconnected but different parts – one on the broader history of the laws of war and another on the very recent present of US domestic politics – forces the book to embrace a North Atlantic, Anglo-American vision of international law that robs it of valuable insights from the Global South and its relationship to the same body of laws. In this review essay, I explore these missed connections seeking to offer a more global approach to the history of war and peace.

‘A Peaceful History’? West Indians, the Inner City, and Local Responses to Migration in Post-War Bristol

Abstract Using the 1980 St. Paul’s riot as a point of departure, this article retrospectively explores migration policymaking in Bristol during the 1950s and 1960s. It charts some of the deliberations, policies and practices of three local actors who played key roles in the city’s debates and developments on migration and integration: the police, charitable, community, religious and voluntary groups and organisations, and the municipality. In doing so, it exposes a complex urban policy arena comprised of varied, multifaceted and ever-changing responses to Commonwealth immigrants, and West Indians in particular. Overall, the article argues that Bristol’s migration policies and practices of the 1950s and 1960s are crucial in light of subsequent increasing inner-city tensions and the 1980 uprising, but also because they broaden our understanding of the pivotal role that cities played in the governance of migration and diversity already during the post-war decades.

Teaching Peace After George Floyd: Notes from St. Paul

AbstractIn the weeks and months after George Floyd’s killing at the hands of the police, gun violence and premature death continued to spur Minnesotans and the rest of the nation to massive street protests for police and prison abolition. Undergraduate students in St. Paul, Minnesota, found themselves at the global epicenter of grassroots political action, sometimes with little formal grounding in social movement theories or the history of peace and justice struggles. To make the study of peace, justice, and social movements relevant and compelling for an increasingly multiracial generation of young activists, this article links concepts from disparate scholarly frameworks, including Asian American activist studies and the history of the Vietnam antiwar movement.

New insights into the spring flood history of the lower Peace and Athabasca Rivers, Northern Canada

Terrace floodbed sediments provide a key to understanding riverine flood history but to date floodbed chronologies have been limited in their temporal resolution. This study reconstructs the spring flood frequency, magnitude, and sediment delivery of the Peace and Athabasca Rivers at the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD), northern Canada, for the past four centuries through an algorithm that relates time to total organic matter accumulation in terrace floodbeds. The floodbed chronology is then compared to the historic flood record. Flood frequency, floodbed thickness (flood magnitude), and sediment accumulation histories were site-specific and therefore required integration across sites to produce cogent histories. Floodbeds record a lower flood frequency than the historic record because they tend not to register small or moderate floods that may not overflow the high terraces. Over the past 400 years, the Athabasca River experienced secular trends of increasing flood frequency and sediment delivery and a multicentury fall then rise in flood magnitude. Peace River flood frequency and sediment delivery peaked sometime early in the 20th century while flood magnitude peaked in the late 1800s. The temporal pattern for flood magnitude of the Peace and Athabasca Rivers was negatively correlated. Athabasca River decadal flood frequency and magnitude were positively correlated. Trends of declining Peace River flood frequency, magnitude, and sediment delivery expressed over much of the 20th century may have reversed in the past 20 years. Since year 2000, flood frequencies of the Peace and Athabasca Rivers have exceeded their 20th century averages. Predictions of ecological changes and the fate of the Peace-Athabasca Delta need to be grounded in data. Hopefully these findings will help to dispel misconceptions about the PAD's history and serve to tether predictions about its future to reality.