A Genealogy of Peace and Conflict Theory

The orthodoxy of IR has been that peace and conflict studies deals only with specific instances of mediation, conflict resolution, conflict transformation, or peacebuilding, and that the broader questions of order, norms, structures, power, and international organisation and governance were best left to ‘international theorists’. This of course, is indicative of mainstream IR theory’s tendency towards reductionism (though at the same time it has quietly adopted many of peace and conflict theory’s approaches).1 Despite this, what has emerged from peace and conflict studies was the gradual extension of the subdiscipline to include areas such as human rights, development, reconstruction, gender, humanitarian assistance, international organisations (IOs), agencies, international financial institutions (IFIs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and non-state actors. In addition broader approaches to peacebuilding emerged, as well as research methods such as ethnography, in order to understand violence, conflict, war, and peace from the perspective of grass roots directly affected and not just from the perspective of states and elites. In this sense, it might be said that peace and conflict studies has been in advance of the orthodoxy of IR and more in line with its critical wings.