Abstract
This chapter will read sociologically the notions of peace, peacebuilding, conflict resolution (CR) and reconciliation, which, together with statebuilding, development and transitional justice, are closely connected to the liberal peace (LP) model. In brief, it provides a rudimental sociological critique of the liberal peace project. Such a critique contains a projected alternative reading, which includes the key elements for reconceptualizing peace properly accounting for a dynamic and conflict-based reading of society. It attempts to contribute towards a critique of LP that paves the way for reading the dialectics ‘peace/war’ and ‘ethnic conflict/reconciliation’ in deeply divided societies suffering from ethnic-related violence. This is a sociology that draws freely from other disciplines, a social science perspective that is by nature interdisciplinary, with conceptual and methodological frames capable of bridging the gap between specializations. Simultaneously, it must be both theoretically and empirically sound and policy-relevant. The chapter provides a schematic critique of some important CR approaches and considers how a sociological reading can enrich, restructure and reconceptualize peace-in-society in terms of critical peace. Given that there is no quick-fix solution to be engineered from ‘Olympus’, a critical sociological/social science reading of peace requires that we first examine societies in a careful and rigorous manner. This would enable us to understand the kinds of internal logics so as to draw on the reflexivity and knowledge generated within the societies themselves.
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Notes
See Susanna Campbell, David Chandler and Meera Sabaratnam, ‘Introduction: The Politics of Liberal Peace’, in A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, eds Susanna Campbell et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1–12;
Roland Paris, ‘Alternatives to Liberal Peace’, in Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, eds Susanna Campbell et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 31–51.
For instance, see Oliver Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace (London: Routledge, 2011); Roger Mac Ginty, Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding (London: Routledge, 2013).
A remarkable exception is the work of Colin Creighton and Martin Shaw, The Sociology of War and Peace (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Sheridan House, 1987). Recently, the sociological input by sociologists into peace and reconciliation has been reinvigo-rated;
see Ari Sitas, The Ethic of Reconciliation (Durban: Madiba Publishers University of Kwazulu-Natal, 2008);
Ari Sitas, ‘Beyond the Mandela Decade: The Ethic of Reconciliation?’ Current Sociology 59, no. 5 (2012): 571–589;
John Brewer, Peace Processes: A Sociological Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010);
Nicos Trimikliniotis, ‘Can We Learn from Comparing Violent Conflicts and Reconciliation Processes? For a Sociology of Conflict and Reconciliation Going beyond Sociology’, in Lorenzo Milani’s Culture of Peace, Essays on Religion, Education, and Democratic Life, eds Carmel Borg and Michael Grech (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014);
Nicos Trimikliniotis, ‘For a Sociology of Conflict and Reconciliation: Learning from Comparing Violent Conflicts and Reconciliation Processes’, Current Sociology 61, no. 2 (2013): 244–264.
See Siniša Maleševic, The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
For instance, see Avishai Ehrlich, ‘Israel: Conflict, War, and Social Change’, in The Sociology of War and Peace, eds Colin Creighton and Martin Shaw (London: Macmillan, 1987).
Pierre Bourdieu, In Other Words: Essays toward a Reflexive Sociology (Stanford University Press, 1990), 198.
Jacques Rancière, ‘The Ethics of Sociology’, The Intellectual and His People, Staging the People, Volume 2 (London: Verso, 2012).
Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research 6, no. 3 (1969): 167–191.
Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Management and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2013), 424, refer to five generations of CR: the Precursors (1925–45), the Founders (1945–65), the Consolidators (1965–85), the Reconstructors (1985–2005) and the Cosmopolitans (2005).
John MacDougall and Morten G. Ender, Teaching the Sociology of Peace, War, and Social Conflict: A Curriculum Guide (Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, 2003), http://www.asanet.org/images/members/docs/pdf/teaching/SylPeaceWar03.pdf accessed 5 March 2015.
See Etienne Balibar, ‘What is a Border’, in Politics and the Other Scene, Etienne Balibar (London: Verso, 2002);
Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (New York: Zone books, 2010);
Jon Calame and Esther Charlesworth, Divided Cities, Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).
See John Rex, Ethnic Minorities in the Modern Nation State (London and New York: Macmillan Press, St Martin’s Press edition, 1996);
Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davies, Racialised Boundaries (London: Routledge, 1992).
The notion of LP is based on the idea of imposing the model of Western liberal democracy as a framework for resolving conflicts. This model includes features like elections, the rule of law/human rights and neoliberal market relations; see Oliver Richmond, ‘Resistance and Liberal Peace’, in A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, eds Susanna Campbell et al. (London: Zed Books, 2011).
Edward Azar, ‘Protracted Social Conflicts: An Analytical Framework’, in International Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, eds Edward Azar and John Burton (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1986), 33–34.
Georg Simmel, ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’, in The Blackwell City Reader, eds Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002).
Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956).
Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 16,
citing the study of Lotta Harbom and Peter Wallensteen, ‘Armed Conflict and Its International Dimensions, 1946–2004’, Journal of Peace Research 42, no. 5 (2005): 623–635.
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Random House, 1975).
Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London: Verso, 1991);
Robert H. R. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire (London: Verso, 2012).
Apart from the founders of sociology, in the late twentieth century, for instance, scholars such as Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966);
Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1990 (Cambridge, MA: B. Blackwell, 2008);
Theda Skocpol, Vision and Method in Historical Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984);
Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005);
Anthony Giddens, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981);
Manuel Castells, Information Age, Economy, Society and Culture, End of Millennium, The Power of Identity, Volume II (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997) have contributed to the debates. Moreover, also important in this field is the development of a critical reading in class, gender and race studies (see Rex, Ethnic Minorities in the Modern Nation State;
Robert Miles, Racism (London: Routledge, 1989); Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class; Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Racialised Boundaries;
Sylvia Walby, ‘Woman and Nation’, in Mapping the Nation, ed. Gobal Balakrishnan (London: New Left Books, 1996); Nira Yuval-Davis, Kalpana Kannabiran and Ulrike Vieten, The Situated Politics of Belonging (London: Sage, 2006). A flavour of the various approaches is contained in debates around ‘mapping the nation’. See Gobal Balakrishnan, Mapping the Nation.
Randal Collins, Violence, a Micro-Sociological Approach (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
From Cox to Stuart Hall, and from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies of the University of Birmingham to post-colonial studies. The Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations (RC05) of the International Sociological Association has very much carried forward the work on this subject. See Oliver C. Cox, Caste, Class, & Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1959);
University of Birmingham, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain (London: Hutchinson in association with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, 1982);
Stuart Hall, David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 1996);
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The Post-Colonial Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 1995).
Sociology has strong traditions on critical reading in class, gender and race studies: see Rex, Ethnic Minorities in the Modern Nation State; Robert Miles, Racism (London: Routledge, 1989); Balibar and Maurice Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class;
Rodolfo Torres and Christopher Kyriakides, Race Defaced Paradigms of Pessimism, Politics of Possibility (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2012);
Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davies, ‘Contextualising Feminism — Gender, Ethnic and Class Divisions’, Feminist Review, 15 (1983): 62–76 and Racialised Boundaries; Walby, ‘Woman and Nation’;
Patricia Hill Collins and John Solomos, The Sage Handbook of Race and Ethnic Studies (London: Sage, 2010);
Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London: Sage, 1997); Yuval-Davis, Kannabiran and Vieten, The Situated Politics of Belonging. For a flavour of the various approaches contained in debates around ‘mapping the nation’ see Gobal Balakrishnan, Mapping the Nation.
See, for instance, Randal Collins, Violence, a Micro-Sociological Approach (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008);
Michel Wieviorka, ‘The Sociological Analysis of Violence: New Perspectives’, The Sociological Review 62 (2014): 50–64.
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Trimikliniotis, N. (2016). Sociology: A Sociological Critique of Liberal Peace. In: Richmond, O.P., Pogodda, S., Ramović, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional Approaches to Peace. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-40761-0_8
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