20
Irregular Wars - Conflict Studies I
Irregular Wars - Conflict Studies I
Monday, 11 July 2016: 10:45-12:15
Location: Hörsaal 6D P (Neues Institutsgebäude (NIG))
RC01 Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution (host committee) Language: French, Spanish and English
Peace and conflict studies has long been associated with a normative emphasis on nonviolence as the only acceptable means of conflict resolution. However, the scholarly and policy positions in peace and conflict studies have ranged from pacifism to varied nuanced forms of nonviolence, including antiwar movements and minimal support for military humanitarian interventions to avert genocides and other threats to human security.
The normative emphasis on nonviolence was shaped by the Cold War and anchored in conventional military warfare wagged by states or at least well-organized militias fighting for social justice, such as the guerrilla wars in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Nicaragua, and Mexico. Since the end of the Cold War and the shift to what has been dubbed new wars, most notably in the forms of predatory rebel movements (without a clear ideological or social justice cause) and terrorism, peace and conflict studies is increasingly challenged to reconcile nonviolence with the need to protect innocent civilians targeted by predatory rebel movements and terrorist organizations. This reality raises important questions for the future direction of peace and conflict studies and moral and policy debates relevant to the new threats to peace and security.
This session invites papers from any theoretical and methodological angle that examine:
- the past, present, and/or future of peace and conflict studies,
- the moral and practical dimensions of nonviolence,
- old and/or new wars that shift the boundaries of nonviolence, and/or
- the theoretical, methodological, and policy challenges of peace and conflict studies.
Session Organizer: