Peace Studies and Conflict Analysis and Resolution (CAR) Programs: An American Example Against a Global Backdrop
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A perception has been developing for more than a decade, reinforced by the publication of Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011),2 that both the frequency and intensity of violent conflict worldwide have been on the decline. More specifically, according to The Human Security Report (2005): By 2003, there were 40 percent fewer conflicts than in 1992. The deadliest conflicts – those with 1,000 or more battle-deaths – fell by some 80 percent. The number of genocides and other mass slaughters of civilians also dropped by 80 percent, while core human rights abuses have declined in five out of six regions of the developing world since the mid-1990s. International terrorism is the only type of political violence that has increased. Although the death toll has jumped sharply over the past three
years, terrorists kill only a fraction of the number who die in wars.
The global decline in armed conflict has been attributed “to the ascendance of democratic regimes and the rising success of international efforts at containing and negotiating settlements to many serious armed conflicts, most of them civil wars” (Hewitt et al., 2010, p. 1). However, by 2008, “both the subsidence of armed conflict and the surge in democracy had stalled and begun to reverse” (ibid.). The reversal was due, in many cases, to conflict recurrence: In 2010, “of the 39 different conflicts that became active in the last 10 years, 31 were conflict recurrences – instances of resurgent, armed violence in societies where conflict had largely been dormant for at least a year” (ibid.). Conflicts recur, in part, because “the internationally brokered settlement or containment of many armed conflicts since the early 1990s did not
deal effectively with root causes” (ibid., pp. 3-4).
During the past half-century, a number of university peace studies and conflict analysis and resolution (CAR) programs have come into existence throughout the world. Their objective has been to better understand the origins of violent conflicts at all levels but, during the Cold War, especially between states and, in the post-Cold War period – as the “new wars” began to trump interstate warfare as the dominant mode – within states as well (see Kaldor, 2006). Such academic programs are also committed to identifying, discovering or inventing innovative approaches for preventing violent conflict and war, and, failing that, dealing in the best possible manner with disruptive expressions of failed human relationships by, among other things, optimally addressing their root causes and preventing their violent recurrence.
This chapter discusses the undergraduate, graduate, and certificate offerings in conflict analysis and resolution offered by one of those programs, The School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) at George Mason University, 3 against the background of similar academic programs at American and other universities worldwide.
Die Lehre der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung boomt! Wie Schnellrestaurants entstehen an vielen Universitätsstandorten Masterstudiengänge mit diesem Schwerpunkt. Ganz im Trend der Zeit suggeriert sie dabei zweierlei, einen spezifischen Problemfokus und auch eine gewisse Anwendungsorientierung. Das zehnjährige Jubiläum des Masterstudiengangs Friedens- und Konfliktforschung in Marburg scheint uns ein guter Anlass zu sein, Chancen und Probleme des Lehrens und Lernens in der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung in den Blick zu nehmen. In den Beiträgen des Bandes werden u.a. folgende Fragestellungen bearbeitet: Welche exemplarischen Erfahrungen liegen vor im Bereich der Curriculumsentwicklung und -umsetzung? Wie werden Aspekte der Konfliktanalyse und -bearbeitung vermittelt? Welche Rolle spielen Facetten allgemeiner Hochschulentwicklung für die Ausgestaltung und Durchführung der Programme? Wie verhält es sich mit der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung in Regionen, die von dominanten Diskursen zur Peripherie marginalisiert worden sind? Welche Rolle spielt die Friedenserziehung?
Der Inhalt
Lehrinhalte und Methoden • Friedens- und Konfliktforschung – eine Lehrdisziplin im internationalen Vergleich • Friedens- und Konfliktforschung und Friedenspraxis – Ein problematisches Verhältnis?
Die Zielgruppen
DozentInnen und StudentInnen der Soziologie Politikwissenschaft sowie Friedens- und Konfliktforschung • SoziologInnen • PolitikwissenschaftlerInnen
Die Herausgeber
Dr. Mathias Bös ist Professor für Soziologische Theorie an der Universität Hannover.
Dr. Lars Schmitt ist Professor für Politische Soziologie an der Fachhochschule Düsseldorf.
Dr. Kerstin Zimmer vertritt die Professur für Angewandte Soziologie an der Universität Marburg.
About the Author
Dr. Mathias Bös ist Professor für Soziologische Theorie an der Universität Hannover.
Dr. Lars Schmitt ist Professor für Politische Soziologie an der Fachhochschule Düsseldorf.
Dr. Kerstin Zimmer vertritt die Professur für Angewandte Soziologie an der Universität Marburg.
