The causes of war are distributed across three
levels: the individual, the society and international level. The objective is to develop peace strategies for all three
levels.
As far as the individual level is concerned, improving education
is the most decisive factor. "That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the
defenses of peace must be constructed - Preamble of the UNESCO constitution in 1945. Peace education plays an important role in
this. Basic course 3 addresses the objectives and aims of peace education in a great deal of detail. In addition to repairing the "peace deficits" of individuals such as
prejudices, one of the most important parts of peace education is to provide people with an insight into how society works
(level 2) and the international system (level 3). Indeed, this serves in highlighting how closely the causes of war at each different level and,
indeed, peace strategies are interwoven.
In terms of the society level, it is undisputed that
democratization is the most effective peace strategy. One of the most proven findings to come out of peace and conflict research is that democracies hardly ever go to war between themselves. The classic argument for explaining why democracies tend to seek peaceful ways of settling
conflicts, such as the one provided by Immanuel Kant in his "To Eternal Peace"
writings, is as follows: When the citizens rather than kings are left to decide whether war should be entered into or
not, the decision for war is far less likely. This is because it is the citizens who are affected and bear the suffering of war
(see the passage on "democratization as a peace strategy").
Another strategy for
peace, which concerns the society and international levels, is to increase
prosperity. Poverty and the unjust distribution of wealth are important causes of war. Those who have
more, have more to lose by war. This strategy should not be restricted (and this is especially true in this age of
globalization) to the society level. One of the most important factors in increasing prosperity is free trade.
Moreover, that exchange and closer trading relationships promote peace are
undisputed.
The international system level is a central focal point for peace and conflict research. The peace strategies that have been developed for this
level, then, will form the focal point of this section. The fundamental problem associated with this level - unlike the society level - is that there is no higher authority with a monopoly over the legitimate use of force. In other
words: There is no such thing as a world state and therefore no one with the power to force nation states into being law abiding in the same way as the nation state is able to do with its
citizens. And it is for this reason that political science refers to this situation as "the natural anarchical state" of the international system. The task of peace
strategies, then, is to limit this natural state and the insecurity that results from it.
The peace researcher Ernst-Otto Czempiel puts it like
this: "The use of force or the threat of it comes from the anarchical situation of the international system,
which, despite all its regulations, remains unmanageable. This means that the security of the system's members is potentially in
danger; and it is to ensure their security that each political system readies itself for the use of force. (...) If military force is to be given up, it has to be replaced by other forms of ensuring
security. Peace theory has always addressed this range of problems and discussed two solutions (...): International law and especially international
organization were developed to have a direct influence on the interaction between the political
systems. Peace politics is about developing these institutions further, strengthening their security-giving influence on
interaction and thereby eradicating the need for military force caused by the structure of the system.
This means that a peace policy aimed at setting up a system
characterized by decreasing military force and increasing distributive justice first needs to weaken the characteristic feature of the international system, followed by
establishing ruling and economic structures, which are designed to eradicate the drive towards using military force which are inherent in the current system."
[Taken from: Ernst-Otto Czempiel: Friedensstrategien, Systemwandel durch Internationale Organisationen, Demokratisierung und Wirtschaft, Paderborn 1986, p. 60-62]
To summarize, Czempiel's view of the two peace strategies for eradicating the causes of violence in the international system is as follows: "International law has not
eradicated the use of force; it hasn't even tried, at least not until 1945. It limited itself to "protecting" war (Carl Schmitt). The
conceptualization and setting up of international organizations, on the other hand, are targeted explicitly at eliminating or restricting violence. The idea was to replace the use of force with compromise and negotiation and eventually even
jurisdiction. While international organization did not compensate for the international system and complete insecurity as its major characteristic for the use of force, it did manage to reduce it. Through the continual
institutionalized assembly of all its members, the objective is to make their behavior
manageable and to dismantle insecurities. Indeed, organized cooperation also serves in expressing the readiness
of countries to approve the right of existence to all participants; this served in doing away with one reason for using violence."
[Taken from: Ernst-Otto Czempiel: Friedensstrategien, Systemwandel durch Internationale Organisationen, Demokratisierung und Wirtschaft, Paderborn 1986, p. 39]
We have dedicated more sections to these two elements - international law and international
organization - which address the creation and development of these two peace strategies.
Other sections on the subject of peace strategies:
