Sociologists Central to Peace Studies

by Meghan Rich, Academic and Professional Affairs Assistant, and Kerry Strand, Visiting Sociologist

In the wake of recent events, the need for a wide-ranging and systematic study of peace and conflict has never been more compelling. Peace Studies is an interdisciplinary field that explores questions about peace and conflict in the lives of individuals, communities, societies, and the world at large. Not surprisingly, sociology has much to offer this emergent field of study.

According to the Peace Studies Association (PSA), an organization formed in 1987 to address the needs of emerging and existing peace studies programs in colleges and universities in the United States and abroad, the number of such programs has grown over the past two decades from a mere handful to more than 200. They include graduate, undergraduate, and professional programs that offer majors, minors, certifications, and concentrations-most of them in the United States but also including places such as Australia, the UK, Spain, Austria, Colombia, Turkey, Indonesia, and Israel.

Although some schools have whole departments dedicated to Peace Studies, many house these programs within more conventional departments. Curricula typically draw on a wide range of disciplines: sociology as well as history, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, religion, environmental studies, and international relations. Peace Studies is one of a number of emerging interdisciplinary fields to which sociologists and sociology contribute. Many sociologists are engaged in varied and wide-ranging efforts to understand why peace or war occur, to show how they shape institutions, culture, and individual lives, and to consider how actual experiences affect the prospects for building a “good” society. In fact, many who spearhead, administer, and teach in Peace Studies programs are sociologists. As sociologist Sam Marullo, Georgetown University, put it, “Sociological understanding of globalization, social stratification, poverty, social dimensions of environmental problems, militarization, race and ethnic conflict, the social roots of violence, and the consequences of both war and peace for society and individuals make our distinctive theoretical lens and research tools indispensable to Peace Studies.”

Students and faculty members tend to bring more than a purely scholarly motivation to Peace Studies programs. They also share a commitment to being, or becoming, effective agents of social action and social change. Thus, Peace Studies programs are analytical as well as applied, theoretical as well as practical and value-driven. Its value base also helps to explain why Peace Studies is often found in faith-based schools, especially Catholic ones, with their commitment to values-based education and longstanding interest in social reform and peace. In fact many Catholic leaders, and even the Pope, are vocal proponents of Peace Studies.

Kathleen Maas Weigert, sociologist and new Director of the Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching, and Service at Georgetown University, notes that two organizing concepts of the field of Peace Studies are “negative peace” and “positive peace.” “Negative peace” refers to the absence of violence; efforts to achieve it include conflict resolution at the interpersonal level and organizational levels and strategic deterrence and arms control at the global level. “Positive peace” is not simply the absence of violence, but rather the presence of peace and social justice. She points out that here the emphasis is on the processes and structures that help bring about a peaceful and just world. As she puts it, “Both kinds of peace require both understanding and action, which make Peace Studies a clear pedagogical 'fit' with community-based learning of various kinds.”

Paul Joseph, Professor of Sociology and Peace Studies at Tufts University, describes a similar strategy where students in Tufts' Peace and Justice Studies Program are placed in a broad range of social change organizations including the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, the American Friends Service Committee, and OxFam. In fact, many Peace Studies departments require a certain number of hours of experiential learning of their majors. Ron Pagnucco, of the Department of Peace Studies, College of St. Benedict/St. John's University in St. Joseph, Minnesota, states that “Students usually want to learn how to do things - how to negotiate, to mediate, how to mobilize and organize. Peace Studies students usually want to use what they learn. Sociologists have models and experiences on how to apply social science and to work for social change.”

Weigert notes that historically it is students with an activist bent who have been drawn toward Peace Studies. In the 1970s student interest was inspired by the controversy surrounding the Vietnam War; in the 1980s, it was nuclear disarmament. Today, many students come to Peace Studies wanting to make a difference around such issues as globalization, ethnic conflicts, inner-city violence and-perhaps especially in the next wave-international terrorism. Peace studies graduates head in a wide variety of career directions: education, politics and public policy, advocacy law, the ministry, mediation, community development and empowerment, and programs such as the Peace Corps, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and Oxfam. They put their understanding and idealism to work on problems such as poverty, human rights, labor relations, world hunger, third world development, environmental preservation, domestic violence, and social and economic injustice in all its forms.