Like many of his contemporary “parents” of the field of conflict and peace research, Chad Alger's service in the Second World War led to a search for more constructive ways of dealing with international conflict and, in his case, a focus on the United Nations (UN).
At the 2010 Annual Conference of the International Studies Association, Chad Alger was very appropriately honored for his career long contribution to international relations scholarship and particularly to the “peace studies” part of the overall field. Alger had worked and taught on diverse aspects of the linkage between the two approaches and was a key figure in bridging an often wide gap between traditional international relations studies and the new ideas that became prevalent in the late 1950s and 1960s.
Like many of his contemporary “parents” of the field of conflict and peace research, Chad had served in the Second World War and as a young man had started to ask questions about why he and his generation had become embroiled, far from home, in this costly way of dealing with international conflict. His first studies were, not surprisingly, regarding the new organizations that were established at the end of that War to try to cope with conflicts in a more constructive way; his focus on the United Nations (UN) and its activities was one that he kept up throughout his academic life. However, unlike most scholars working on the UN in the 1960s, he avoided legal and institutional approaches in favor of direct observation of what actually went on in the General Assembly (and elsewhere); focusing on who were the movers and shakers, and who worked behind the scenes to see that the organization “worked” in spite of its many flaws.
In his interview, Chad Alger identifies individuals and organizations that drew him further into the field of peace research – John Burton and the Centre for the Analysis of Conflict in London, Johan Galtung and P.R.I.O. in Oslo, Richard Snyder and Harold Guetzkow at North Western University and Indar Rikye at the International Peace Academy in New York. From that point onwards he became an important part of the intellectual and institutional development of that field, playing major roles over the years in the life of the International Peace Research Association and helping to establish the Peace Studies Section of the International Studies Association. Both organizations owe him a debt of gratitude for the time and effort he put into their establishment and growth.
The other unique contribution Chad made to peace and conflict studies was his interest in the linkages that existed between local communities in distant and ostensibly separate countries. His work on the foreign connections and hence the 'foreign policies' of cities was path breaking and pre-dated much of the interest in multi-track approaches to peacemaking pioneered by practitioners such as Ambassador John McDonald from the 1980s onwards. In this and many other respects, Chad Alger was both a pioneer and a “parent of the field,” as the interview with this essentially modest man reveals.
JB/CRM
