Peace and conflict studies
Peace and conflict studies or conflict analysis and resolution is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviors as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts (including social conflicts), with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies (irenology), is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking "victory" for all parties involved in the conflict. This social science is in contrast to military studies, which has as its aim the efficient attainment of victory in conflicts, primarily by violent means to the satisfaction of one or more, but not all, parties involved. Disciplines involved may include philosophy, political science, geography, economics, psychology, communication studies, sociology, international relations, history, anthropology, religious studies, gender studies, law, and development studies as well as a variety of others. Relevant sub-disciplines of such fields, such as peace economics, may be regarded as belonging to peace and conflict studies also. Historical background Peace and conflict studies is both a pedagogical activity, in which teachers transmit knowledge to students; and a research activity, in which researchers create new knowledge about the sources of conflict. Peace and conflict studies entails understanding the concept of peace which is defined as political condition that ensures justice and social stability through formal and informal institutions, practices, and norms. As pedagogical activity Academics and students in the world's oldest universities have long been motivated by an interest in peace. American student interest in what we today think of as peace studies first appeared in the form of campus clubs at United States colleges in the years immediately following the American Civil War. Similar movements appeared in Sweden in the last years of the 19th century, as elsewhere soon after. These were student-originated discussion groups, not formal courses included in college curricula. The first known peace studies course in higher education was offered in 1888 at Swarthmore College, a Quaker school The First World War was a turning point in Western attitudes to war. At the 1919 Peace of Paris—where the leaders of France, Britain, and the United States, led by Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson respectively, met to decide the future of Europe—Wilson proposed his famous Fourteen Points for peacemaking. These included breaking up European empires into nation states and the establishment of the League of Nations. These moves, intended to ensure a peaceful future, were the background to a number of developments in the emergence of Peace and Conflict Studies as an academic discipline. The founding of the first chair in International Relations at Aberystwyth University, Wales, whose remit was partly to further the cause of peace, occurred in 1919. After World War II, the founding of the UN system provided a further stimulus for more rigorous approaches to peace and conflict studies to emerge. Many university courses in schools of higher learning around the world began to develop which touched upon