Key Theories & Frameworks
Johan Galtung identified three components of conflict: (1) Contradiction — incompatible goals, (2) Attitude — perceptions and misperceptions, (3) Behavior — cooperation or coercion. Peace requires addressing all three: negative peace (absence of violence) vs. positive peace (presence of justice).
Beyond resolving specific issues, conflict transformation changes relationships, structures, and systems that produce violence. Focuses on long-term relationship rebuilding, not just short-term settlement.
Violence embedded in social structures — poverty, inequality, discrimination — that prevent people from meeting their basic needs. Not physical harm but systematic deprivation that shortens lives and limits potential.
Conflicts are caused by unmet basic human needs — identity, recognition, security, participation. These needs are non-negotiable, so conflicts over them cannot be resolved through compromise but only through reframing and satisfaction.
Democracies rarely fight each other. Reasons: institutional constraints (public accountability), normative constraints (shared values), and economic interdependence. One of the strongest empirical findings in IR.
Conflicts move through stages: latent → emergence → escalation → de-escalation → settlement → resolution → peacebuilding. Each stage has different dynamics and requires different interventions.
Core Concepts
Case Studies & Examples
30 years of conflict (The Troubles) killed 3,500+ people. The Good Friday Agreement created power-sharing between unionists and nationalists. Key elements: decommissioning, police reform, prisoner release, and cross-border institutions. Demonstrated that even intractable conflicts can be transformed.
Chaired by Desmond Tutu, the TRC offered amnesty in exchange for full disclosure of apartheid-era crimes. Emphasized restorative over retributive justice. Criticized for letting perpetrators escape prosecution but praised for creating a historical record and enabling reconciliation.
800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu killed in 100 days. International community failed to intervene. Post-genocide, Rwanda used Gacaca — community-based courts — to try 1.9 million suspects. Emphasized truth-telling, confession, and community reintegration.
Ended the Bosnian War (1992-1995) that killed 100,000. Created a complex federal structure dividing Bosnia into two entities: Federation (Bosniak-Croat) and Republika Srpska (Serb). Stopped the war but created a dysfunctional state that remains divided.
Practice Questions
A: Negative peace is the absence of direct violence — a ceasefire or truce. Positive peace is the presence of justice, equity, and social structures that prevent violence. Negative peace without positive peace is fragile — violence often recurs when structural causes remain unaddressed.
A: Direct violence is physical harm by an identifiable actor — war, assault, murder. Structural violence is harm caused by social structures — poverty, racism, inequality — that prevent people from meeting basic needs. Galtung argued structural violence is often more deadly than direct violence but receives less attention.
A: Peacekeeping: military forces maintain ceasefires and protect civilians (during conflict). Peacemaking: diplomatic efforts to end active conflict through negotiation (during conflict). Peacebuilding: long-term processes addressing root causes — institutions, reconciliation, development (post-conflict).
A: (1) Correlation ≠ causation — democracies may share other traits that prevent war, (2) definition problems — what counts as democracy or war, (3) democracies still fight non-democracies, (4) transitional democracies may be more war-prone, (5) economic interdependence may be the real cause.
A: Conflict resolution focuses on ending the immediate dispute — reaching agreement on specific issues. Conflict transformation goes deeper — changing the relationships, structures, and systems that produced the conflict. Resolution asks "how do we stop fighting?" Transformation asks "how do we create a just and sustainable peace?"