Peace, Pacifism, Nonviolence: 21st Century Developments

Despite the achievements of pacifist and nonviolent movements in influencing the course and nature of international politics over the last century or more, and despite obvious theoretical overlaps and connections, pacifism and nonviolence have largely been excluded from contemporary theories and practices of peace. Instead, the dominant conception of peace in both international relations and peace and conflict studies has been of “negative peace” narrowly defined as the absence or management of large-scale political violence. In this conception, states, militaries, and international organizations are viewed as essential to the maintenance of peace, which are primarily associated with stability, law and order, and strong public institutions. Some attempts to expand the conception of peace beyond a negative value have occurred, including the rise of critical peace building in the early 2000s and new mainstream frameworks of peace studies such as quality peace, the peace continuum, world peace, and varieties of peace. Upon examination, it can be argued that these approaches remain rooted in a state-centric, militaristic paradigm, or they problematically fail to go beyond descriptive analysis. Few, if any, take nonviolence and pacifism seriously and seek to radically transform the existing violent state-based international order. Nevertheless, the present historical juncture provides an opportune moment for rethinking the theory and practice of peace and for seeking to transform politics and political theory away from states, militarism, and the values of “negative peace” toward nonviolent, pacifistic, social justice–based forms of “positive peace.” Notwithstanding a number of conceptual and practical obstacles, existing conceptions of agonistic peace, feminist peace, and decolonial peace, among others, as well as expanding interest in the field of nonviolent resistance, provide an important foundation for advancing this important objective.