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We all approach peace education out of our own personal experience. If we are to empower our students to understand and cope with threats to peace across national and cultural borders, we must understand the challenges encountered by our colleagues in other nations and cultures and how they are coping with these challenges.Footnote 1

I have chosen as my title “The Foundations of Peace Education” because I want to present my conclusions about what I believe must be included in any peace curriculum. I am not saying that the elements that I shall present must be included in all peace courses. Nor must they be presented in the order in which I shall present them. Each peace course must be shaped in response to the needs of specific students who are living in specific social contexts. In our courses, we must begin dialogue with our students that is responsive to the circumstances that they are encountering in their daily lives. On the other hand, what I am saying is that students will not be fully prepared to work for peace unless at some point they encounter all of the elements that I will present.

8.1 Peace is Possible

First, I fervently believe that the bedrock of peace education is (1) attainment of belief in the possibility of peace everywhere! Each of us faces the challenge to this belief in different kinds of ways. As a political scientist specializing in international relations, I confront it continually because many in the mainstream of international relations scholarship tend to assume that war is inevitable. This is largely because political and diplomatic history tends to be a history of wars and to treat peace as those intervals between wars. In my own teaching, I prefer not to begin by strongly declaring my belief in the widespread possibility for peace. Rather, I believe that it inevitably develops out of a peace curriculum that offers three more fundamentals: (2) placing threats to peace in a comprehensive historical context, (3) careful usage of key concepts, such as peace, violence, and power, and (4) broad exposure to what we have learned in our pursuit of peace. In addition, I believe that it is very useful to offer students an opportunity to put into practice what they are learning by (5) developing their own peace strategies in a specific case of disruptive conflict and (6) comparing their strategies with those employed by fellow students working on other cases. This chapter will focus on these additional five points.

8.2 Historical Context

In acquiring the necessary historical context for approaching challenges to peace, we must ask three basic questions: (1) Where are we now? (2) Where are we coming from? (3) Where should we be heading? They are in response to Elise Boulding’s plea that we should approach peace in the context of a 200 year present (Boulding 1988: 3–15). Too often those immersed in a disruptive conflict are so totally immersed in their present sea of troubles that they have a very narrow comprehension of the present, are largely ignorant of where they are coming from, and have very limited vision of where they are headed.

The first question—Where are we now?—is very important because it challenges us to acquire a comprehensive view of the present. We are all aware that most media define news as “bad news”. Thus, peace educators must help students to understand that they must search beyond the daily press, TV, and radio news in order to acquire full understanding of the present and thereby to obtain the ability to perceive potential for building preferred futures. Ada Aharoni has offered a poignant example.

We worked very hard preparing the “20 years to the Bridge Symposium: Jewish and Arab/Palestinian Women for Peace in the Middle East.” We invited all the major media to cover it, so as to spread the climate and hope of peace to the wide public that are so fearful and discouraged nowadays, in both the Jewish and Arab/Palestinian sectors. However, no media came! The next day, one Palestinian was killed in Abu Tor, and one Israeli soldier was attacked near Jerusalem—all the media reported minutely and repeatedly on both incidents. 230 Jewish and Arab/Palestinian women have an intensive Symposium with open, constructive discussions on how to pave the “Peace in the Middle East,” and it is not considered “news,” whereas when 1 or 2 men are killed or attacked it is major news! (Aharoni 1998).

The second question—Where are we coming from?—challenges us to realize that we have a tendency to perceive the past through eyes focused on present conflicts thereby selecting items that illuminate the roots of present conflicts rather than those that draw attention to past events that reveal potential for peace building in the present. Thus, many in Yugoslavia have quickly forgotten that peaceful communities in the past, composed of cooperating Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians, can offer foundations for future peace. From a much broader perspective, Kenneth Boulding has reminded us that historians have devoted a disproportionate amount of research and writing to war: “Therefore, in the interest of human survival, there is a desperate need to develop images of the relevant past… what might be called the ‘other side’ of history, in which peace is seen essentially as the norm and war is seen as an interruption in the long process of the development of knowledge and skill, especially in the management of conflict” (Boulding 1989a: 463–464).

The third question—Where should we be heading?—presents most students with an almost insuperable challenge. Certainly the pursuit of peace requires a vision of a peaceful world. Nevertheless, although students are quick to respond when asked to describe elements of peace lessness in the present, most find it overwhelmingly difficult—virtually impossible—to offer a vision of a peaceful future. This is intertwined with their inability to believe in the possibility of peace. Hopefully students will begin to be liberated from this constraint by elements of the peace education curriculum that follow.

8.3 Basic Concepts

Careless use of concepts contributes much to confusion and failure in efforts to overcome extremely disruptive conflict. The relevant concepts are numerous, but here we shall illustrate this point with four very key concepts: peace, conflict, violence, and power. First, it is absolutely necessary to carefully explore the broad array of meanings of peace. Charles Chatfield has laid the foundations with three components: “a sense of juridical order associated with the Latin word pax; a sense of ethical social relationships conveyed by the Greek word eirene; and a sense of well-being that flows from spiritual wholeness, conveyed by the Hebrew J shalom” (Chatfield 1986: 11).

In more recent peace studies terminology, we begin with a dichotomy. There is “negative peace,” or the absence of physical violence; and there is “positive peace,” or the existence of economic and social justice. These abstractions, extended by examination of a number of dimensions of each, then prepare us for understanding why some people define peace as eliminating weapons of mass destruction and others define peace as conditions in which there is adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. They help us to learn that people tend to define peace as removing that which injects the most severe fear, suffering, and pain into their daily life. Eventually understanding of the diversity of meanings of peace teaches us that the politics of building peace requires that those involved understand the definition of peace of their so-called enemies and begin building social structures that incorporate elements of more than one meaning of peace.

Second, we must carefully distinguish among different forms of conflict. Essential is the distinction between violent and nonviolent conflict. Although the difference is obvious, much confusion is caused by frequent tendencies to use violence and conflict as synonyms and then to propose strategies for “preventing conflict.” Once, during a vigorous debate in the UN General Assembly, a journalist sitting next to me declared: “There they go again, this is supposed to be the United Nations, but they are fighting again.” He failed to understand the triumph that had been achieved by transforming that conflict from the battlefield to a parliamentary debate. Conflict is essential for peace building. It is employed in political campaigns, legislative debates, and diplomatic negotiations. Indeed, Galtung’s manual Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means declares that conflict is both a destroyer and creator, “as potentially dangerous both now and in the future because of the violence, but as a golden opportunity to create something new” (Galtung 1997: 4).

Third, coping with confusion in the usage of the term conflict is inevitably intertwined with usage of the concepts violence and nonviolence. Many equate nonviolence with a kind of pacifism that avoids conflict and accepts the status quo, because they do not yet understand the role of nonviolent action in peace building. At the same time, in more affluent cultures there is resistance to employment of the term structural violence to identify human suffering and slow loss of life that is caused by economic and social structures. But the term is vitally useful in facilitating dialogue between those fearing quick death (direct violence) and those fearing slow death (structural violence). Of course, would-be peace builders confront puzzling challenges in applying these concepts. One puzzle is, How far can nonviolent action go without becoming structural violence? For example, some of those employing nonviolent action against abortion clinics in the United States can be perceived as perpetrating structural violence against those women who believe that personal choice is their right.

Fourth, it is vital that peace education examine the various dimensions of the concept power. There is a tendency to equate power with force, although, after careful thought, we all know differently. Here Kenneth Boulding is again extremely helpful in his volume Three Faces of Power (1989b). He summarizes a far-ranging examination of kinds of power into three dimensions: (1) threat power, the power to destroy, (2) economic power, the power to produce and exchange, and (3) integrative power, the power to create such relations as love, respect, friendship, and legitimacy. His analysis causes us to ponder how selective history, and enduring social structures created for coping with perceived external threats, encourage us to depend on threat power. At the same time, he makes us aware of how neglectful we have been in recognizing the integrative dimension of power in peace studies. Certainly the European Community is now dramatically illustrating the integrative dimension of power. It causes us to ask: Was the fear generated by two world wars necessary for the creation of the Community? Why was the integrative power illustrated by the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 not more fully employed?

8.4 What Have We Learned? The Emerging Tool Chest

In peace education it is essential that we emphasize how much we have learned about peace building. Despite the fact that we still have much to learn, the basic problem is that most of the time we are not applying in practice what we already know. It is useful to present what we have learned in the context of the practice out of which it has emerged. This inevitably means that each of us will select that practice emerging out of those human activities that are the subject of our personal experiences, research, and teaching. In my teaching, I focus on peace learning that has emerged out of experiences in the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations (Alger 1996b, 1999).

My peace-building tool chest has ever more drawers, as a result of the impact of the same technological changes on relations between peoples. My most recent version has six drawers, with a total of 24 compartments (see Fig. 3.1). I will present a very quick overview of these tools in the order of their historical emergence, indicating how each evolved out of experience with earlier ones (see Fig. 2.1).

The first drawer, nineteenth-century, has two tools. (1) Diplomacy is a significant human achievement that deserves much credit for the fact that most states have peaceful relations with most other states most of the time. The system of embassies that each country has in the capitals of many other countries has developed over many centuries. Formerly consisting primarily of career diplomats representing their Foreign Ministry, now many embassies include representatives of other government departments responsible for health, labor, education, trade, environment, and so forth.

Although we have emphasized that the interstate diplomatic system preserves the peace most of the time, nevertheless disputes do arise and create situations in which states fear aggression by others. In such cases (2) Balance of Power may be used to deter aggression. In the sense in which we are using the term, employment of balance of power means that a state attempts to acquire sufficient military and related capacity to deter aggression or attempts to deter aggression by making alliances with other states. When balance of power is employed as a deterrent, it may help to deter aggression. On the other hand, reciprocal application of balance of power has frequently led to deadly arms races.

The second drawer, League of Nations Covenant, adds three more tools. (3) Collective Security, devised to overcome the weaknesses of balance of power as a deterrent to aggression, obligated all who were members of the League to “undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League.” Those who advocated collective security believed that the pledge of all to resist aggression by any member would be such an overwhelming deterrent that none would have reasonable ground for fearing aggression. But the obvious common sense of collective security in the abstract ignores the fact that all may not be able or willing to resist aggression by any other member.

(4) Peaceful Settlement was intended to prevent the outbreak of violence in those instances when routine diplomacy fails to do so. In cases where a dispute may “lead to a rupture” the Covenant required states to “submit the matter either to arbitration or judicial settlement or to inquiry by the [League] Council.” In other words, members involved in a dispute agree to involve certain “third parties” when they alone cannot control I escalating hostility. In employing third parties, states are drawing on I human experience in a variety of other contexts: labor-management disputes, disputes between buyers and sellers, marital disputes, and so on.

(5) Disarmament/Arms Control responded to those who believed that arms races had contributed to the outbreak of World War I and believed that elimination, or at least reduction, of arms would enhance chances for peace. This was an effort to codify disarmament and arms control proposals that had been advanced in earlier times. Although Covenant provisions for disarmament/arms control never fulfilled the aspirations of advocates, they did facilitate the negotiation of numerous arms control measures in the 1930s. These provided valuable experience, and also a great deal of skepticism, for those who would again face similar circumstances after World War II.

League experience with these three negative peace tools (stopping the violence) revealed a desperate need for positive peace tools (building peaceful social structures). Building on important League experience, the UN Charter, drawer three, provided three additional tools, in addition to continuation of the three tools in drawer two. (6) Functionalism encourages states to cooperate in solving common economic and social problems that might disrupt normal relationships and even lead to violence. Drafters of the Charter had in mind examples such as worldwide depression in the 1930s and the inability of states to collaborate in coping j with this disaster. The depression led to strikes, extreme social unrest, and violence in many countries and significantly contributed to the development of totalitarian governments and aggression in some cases. Emphasis on economic and social cooperation in the Charter is signified by the creation of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) alongside the Security Council (responsible for collective security), which had been the only council in the League. ECOSOC was created “with a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations.” Its mission includes the achievement of higher standards of living, full employment, solutions i of international economic, social, health, and related problems, and international cultural and educational cooperation. At the same time, ECOSOC has the responsibility of coordinating the activities of some 30 agencies in the UN system with responsibility for health, labor, education, development, environment, population, trade, and a number of other global problems.

Following League of Nation practice, some colonies of defeated colonial powers became UN Trusteeships. But (7) Self-Determination was dramatically extended in the UN Charter by inclusion of Chapter XI, a “Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories,” which covered the many overseas colonies not under trusteeship. This Declaration asserts that those administrating colonies are obligated “to develop self-government… and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions.” Eventually, this Declaration provided the foundation for prodding the overseas colonial powers to begin relinquishing control of their colonies. This led to a strengthened Declaration by the General Assembly in 1960: “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.” Both the Trusteeship Council and the General Assembly played a very significant role in the largely peaceful dismantlement of overseas empires. In this respect, self- determination has proven to be a very useful peace tool. This remarkable transformation of the interstate system more than doubled the number of independent states and the number of UN members. Presently the world confronts a new generation of self-determination demands by peoples in multination states (as in Yugoslavia) and in multistate nations (e.g., the Kurds). Unfortunately, there has been as yet no effort to draw on past experience in developing multilateral institutions for coping with a new era of self-determination demands.

(8) Human Rights are mentioned seven times in the Charter, including the second sentence of the Preamble, which announces determination “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.” As in the case of economic and social cooperation, the Charter states that human rights shall be promoted in order to “create conditions and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations.” Building on the brief references to human rights in the Charter, the UN General Assembly soon produced the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1947, which is now widely accepted as part of international common law and has even been applied by domestic courts in a number of states. In order to strengthen the legal status of the Declaration, its principles were in 1966 put in treaty form by the General Assembly as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In addition, an array of more specialized treaties have been developed on genocide, racial discrimination, women’s rights, children’s rights, forced labor, cruel and inhumane punishment, rights of refugees, and other dimensions of human rights. All of these can be applied toward the end of preventing the creation of unacceptable conditions of human depravity that may lead to severe unrest and even violence.

The fourth drawer, UN Practice (2950–1959), adds six tools. (9) Peacekeeping is not explicitly provided for by the UN Charter but was invented out of challenges confronted in the UN “laboratory.” In its simplest form, it essentially involves a cease-fire, followed by creation of a demilitarized corridor on each side of a truce line. This neutral corridor is patrolled by a UN peacekeeping force, protected by the UN flag and small arms. The end of the Cold War has permitted rapid expansion of the number of peacekeeping forces, to Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, the Iraq- Kuwait border, Somalia, and other places. In some instances, as in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia, UN forces have been employed without first acquiring a cease-fire and in situations where there is no clear authority that could grant permission for entry of the UN force. These efforts tend to be referred to as “peace enforcement,” that is, limited use of arms toward the end of restoring peace. Whether “peace enforcement” will become a useful peace tool is still much in doubt because even limited use of violence toward the end of “restoring peace” may quickly escalate into widespread violence.

Prodded by title growing divide between the rich and the poor in the United Nations, three peace tools developed out of UN practice were largely a product of growing insight on the relevance of economic conditions and relationships for peace. (10) Economic Development became a growing policy concern both within the United Nations and outside. The basic idea was that the rich-poor gap could be diminished if the rich countries provided development aid to the poor countries so that they could “take off” and become developed. Many people would argue that both bilateral and multilateral economic development programs have often contributed to peace by diminishing poverty. But overall they did not diminish the rich-poor gap in the world. This led to a “Third World” charge that the international economic structure was preventing their development. Thus, they demanded (11) International Economic Equity (NIEO), often referred to as a New International Economic Order. This included demands for stabilization of commodity prices, pegging the price of Third World commodities to those of manufactured products bought from industrialized countries, access to technology useful in development, and international regulation of multinational corporations. Failure of the Third World to obtain response to these demands contributed to frustration that led to demands for (12) International Communications Equity, or a New International Information and Communications Order. After World War II, “free flow of communication” had been emphasized as a prerequisite for peace. But in the 1970s Third World countries became increasingly concerned about the one-way international flow of news, radio and TV broadcasts, films, books, and magazines. Out of this dissatisfaction came demands for “free and balanced flow of communication” that were largely made in United Nation Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) meetings. These demands too have acquired slight response, although the reliable mutual knowledge—across cultures and nations—that is encouraged by balanced flow could contribute to peace in all parts of the world.

The rapidly growing impact of new technologies on the environment and the commons (oceans, space, and Antarctica) has added new dimensions to peace. (13) Ecological Balance became a widely recognized problem in world relations as a result of the UN Environment Conference held in Stockholm in 1972. Whereas in 1972 very few tended to see ecological balance as a dimension of peace, this perspective is now widely shared. (14) Governance for the Commons has been most dramatically moved forward by the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty, completed after 10 years of negotiations, which has established an International Sea Bed Authority with its own Assembly, Council, and. Secretariat, as well as an International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

The fifth drawer, UN Practice (1990-), adds two more negative peace tools that have gained prominence after the Cold War as a result of growth in multilateral peace efforts. They could certainly be employed as positive peace tools, but they have tended to be employed in reaction to violence and threats of imminent violence, rather than in long-term peace building. (15) Humanitarian Intervention occurs within the borders of states without their explicit consent, responding to egregious violations of human rights and also to prevent escalation of a domestic dispute that could jeopardize the security of other states. (16) Preventive Diplomacy is defined by former Secretary General Boutros-Ghali as “action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur.” For Boutros-Ghali preventive diplomacy requires three elements: measures to create confidence, early warning based on information gathering, and informal or formal fact-finding. “It may also involve preventive deployment and, in some situations, demilitarized zones” (1995: 46–51).

The sixth drawer, Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) and Peoples Movements, reflects the increasing importance of NGOs and peoples movements, or what we increasingly refer to as “civil society” in peace building. Of course, these movements have from time to time been advocates of all peace tools, certainly including disarmament/arms control, human rights, and ecological balance. But we believe that they have been primarily instrumental in developing eight peace tools. The first, (17) Track II Diplomacy, addresses the limitations of diplomacy and peaceful settlement by recognizing that stalled negotiations, or those broken off by governmental representatives, may be revived by initiatives outside of government. Consisting at least in part of people outside of government, this approach offers a “second track” that sometimes may include alternative representatives of governments, often at a lower level.

The next four tools aim at limiting the development and deployment of arms. (18) Conversion from military to civilian production undercuts arguments that military production provides jobs—for factory workers, engineers, and researchers—by demonstrating that more jobs could be created by providing for housing, home appliances, and other domestic needs. (19) Defensive Defense argues for defense that employs weapons that are essentially defensive in nature such as short-range mechanized forces and interception aircraft, thereby attempting to halt the tendency to acquire bigger and bigger weapons with ever more distant reach. (20) Nonviolence is used by social movements in energetic pursuit of social change, while avoiding the use of arms and thereby diminishing the need for armed police and military forces employed for internal security. (21) Citizen Defense is closely related to nonviolence employed for social change, but this tool employs nonviolent techniques for national defense. It goes one step further than defensive defense by also eliminating defensive weapons. Citizen defense relies on the deterrence of large-scale, well-publicized organization and planning for massive refusal to cooperate with any invader and to deprive them of the basic needs and services required by an occupying army (Sharp 1985).

The next two peace tools largely focus on creating economic and social aspects of a peaceful society from the grassroots. (22) Self-Reliance emerged as a peace tool in the context of dialogue focused primarily on the economic dimensions of peace that evolved from functionalism to economic development to international economic equity. It asserts that development should develop individual human beings, not things, and that this kind of development requires that people have the capacity to seek fulfillment through self-reliance, thereby avoiding dependency. (23) The Feminist Perspective is particularly useful in shedding light on the degree to which values associated with militarism and military organizations permeate societies and how that came to be. At the same time, the feminist perspective provides a vision of alternative kinds of societies, by questioning the inevitability of violence as a tool in the pursuit of peace and security. It illuminates the sources of the “violence habit” and offers visions of alternative ways for solving human problems (Reardon 1990).

(24) Peace Education is the last tool to be presented because it comprises all that has gone before. Indeed, the successful employment of all that we have learned about peace building in the twentieth century is dependent on peace education. It makes possible the placing of peace issues on the agenda of the vast array of disciplines and professions that have something to contribute to the pursuit of peace. Peace education should also be placed more prominently on the agendas of the thousands of organizations in civil society that are increasingly involved in peacebuilding movements. To those of us involved in peace education in schools and universities, the entire sixth drawer (NGOs/Peoples Movements) is particularly relevant because it suggests opportunities for all of our students to participate in peace building and thereby to obtain the unparalleled kind of learning that comes out of thoughtful practice (Alger 1995, 1996a).

8.5 Putting the Pieces Together: Developing Peace Strategies and Peace Education

After we have acquired the necessary broad historical context, have attained reasonably precise usage of concepts, and have a well-stocked tool chest, we are much more inclined to believe that peace is possible At this point we are prepared to put all of the pieces together, that is to apply what we have learned in an arena of intense peacelessness. Thus, in a peace studies seminar, participants might be asked to choose one o the present widely reported cases as a laboratory—for example, Cameroon, Liberia, Yugoslavia, Colombia—so that there is likely to be much material readily available. Then turn back the clock 30 years. Thus, it is now 1973. We know what has happened in 2003, and it is the student’ challenge to develop a peace strategy, in 5-year increments, that would have made 2003 more peaceful than it now is.

The first step in putting the pieces together into a peace-building strategy is to create what could be called an “attainable vision” of what might have been achieved by 2003. This challenging task requires a dialogue among (1) a vision of peace in 2003, (2) conditions in 1973, and (3) relevant earlier history. It is very important to emphasize that this effort to place the case being examined in historical context involves not only; search for the roots of present peacelessness. It also demands an effort to discover past dimensions of peace whose potential failed to be exploited and for insight on why this was so. The effort to construct an attainable vision inevitably requires an examination of how peace is defined in different sectors of involved societies. An attainable vision will be the product of a dialogue among these different definitions of pea≪ with a result that is responsive to all involved in a specific case of disruptive conflict.

Once an attainable vision has been developed, it is time to open u the tool chest. Of course, this assumes that students have already learned the nature of each tool and have some knowledge of how it has bee: employed in the past and of appropriate and inappropriate uses. Important here is to overcome the tendency of many people to approach peace-building problem with a propensity to believe that their favorite tool will solve all problems Each tool must be selected only after careful analysis of the situation in which it is to be applied and after knowledge about when it might be useful and when it might make things worse. For example, sometimes balance of power (in military terms) can restrain aggressors. On the other hand, it can lead to arms races and thereby undermine efforts to achieve peace. Students could be urged to approach their tool box with an assumption that all tools are useful under some conditions and that all tools can occasionally make things worse. They are certainly not required to use all tools, but at the end of their paper, they are required to explain why any tool not employed was left out of their strategy.

Now that the tool box is open, we face the challenge of deciding what should be done first, that is, what will our peace strategy be for the 1973–1978 period? Should we begin to work for disarmament now? Or will this be easier later, after greater economic equity among the contending parties has been achieved? Will political conditions make it possible to begin moving now toward greater economic equity, or will it first be necessary to develop a people’s movement dedicated to economic equity? Will this be possible before a people’s movement is able to achieve greater civil and political rights that would make an economic equity movement possible? Given the fact that these economic and social changes could take a decade or more, should we simultaneously make at least modest efforts toward some form of arms control?

These few examples make it quite clear that deciding where to begin with a 30-year peace strategy is almost as difficult as developing an attainable vision. Nevertheless, as students are challenged to decide which tool should be used first, and which tools should be used in combination, they acquire a deeper understanding of each tool. And once the first stage strategy has been developed, it is somewhat easier to follow on with the other 5-year increments that lead up to 2003. On the other hand, both students and professor are continually challenged in assessing how long it will take for a specific tool to bring about desired changes. At the same time, there is an inevitable continuing dialogue between efforts to apply peace tools and growing knowledge about the actual state of affairs in 1973 and 2003, as well as between efforts to apply the tools and the definition of an attainable vision. This inevitable fluidity in historical facts, a future vision, and peace strategies offers students deeper understanding of the challenges faced by peace builders. But students face a deadline that is in some respects sterner than that confronted by “real” peace builders: Academic deadlines require that they bring their search to an end.

8.6 Comparative Evaluation of Peace-Building Strategies

In the final meetings of the seminar, there are vitally important opportunities for comparison of the cases. First we ask: What were the root causes of disruptive conflict in each case? In discussion we attempt to make a list of which root causes were very significant and which of lesser significance. In those cases where similar root causes were identified, but different tools were employed, an opportunity is offered for comparative evaluation of different strategies. For example, in two cases where ethnic conflict was a root cause of intensive conflict, why was greater self- determination offered in one case but greater functional economic cooperation across ethnic divisions advocated in another case?

Second, based on a report from each student, we make a table indicating which tools were employed and in which stage of the peace strategy they were introduced. Here we are likely to find that some students tend to see stronger peoples movements with peace-building goals as essential in the first stage of peace building, whereas others place greater emphasis on existing political authorities. Discussion tends to illuminate whether the difference is a result of different conditions in the case being examined or a result of a student’s assumptions about the value of people’s movements that is independent of factors in the case being examined. This tends to provoke a useful challenge that requires that the person confident in the peace-building capacity of peoples movements justify his or her choice of this tool in this specific case.

8.7 Conclusion: The Challenges for Peace Educators

We began by emphasizing that “the bedrock of peace education” is attainment of the belief that peace is possible everywhere, a belief that is facilitated by the capacity to perceive the widespread existence of peace in the world today. We then stressed the importance of approaching peace in a historical context that links present conditions to a preferred vision of the future and a relevant historical context that does not neglect past conditions of peace. Bringing to bear a broad historical context demonstrates that we have learned a great deal about building peace in this century, as exemplified by the growing array of peace tools that have emerged out of League of Nations and United Nations experience. Different peace educators could, of course, develop a somewhat different array of peace tools out of other contexts. Our choice is based largely on our belief in the value of presenting emerging peace tools as evidence of a historical learning process that is global in scope.

The challenge for peace educators is not only to enable students to acquire knowledge about the growing array of peace tools but also to facilitate the development of student competence in applying them. We concluded with a description of the strategy that we use in challenging students to acquire competence in employing available peace tools by developing a strategy for coping with an exceedingly disruptive conflict. Our 30-year peace-building exercise illuminates our belief that peace education must emphasize the importance of long-term peace building that illuminates the broad array of political, economic, social, and cultural factors that contribute to peace. At the same time, this broad approach reveals to students how all citizens, no matter what their profession or station in life, can play a role in peace building in their everyday life.