Whither Peace Studies? Fragmentation to a New Integration?
In spite of the surface appearance of flourishing, peace studies now faces a crisis of dilution and fragmentation though concerned voices have long warned against it. The root of the crisis is traced back to the years around 1970, when Johan Galtung proposed the theory of structural violence. At that time, there were heated debates about whether to broaden the research agenda to include poverty and underdevelopment or not. It is shown that, though it was a great contribution to peace studies, the theory of structural violence also brought about the excessive expansion of the research agenda of the discipline, because, according to the theory, every important social problem could be a legitimate research subject of peace studies. More than two decades after the debates, however, there have appeared several symptoms which show the reorientation of the discipline toward the original narrower focus on war and conflict. Since a simple return to the past is impossible, it is suggested that, by focusing on the issues of war and conflict, peace studies should try to eliminate one of the major obstacles to the final goal of peace in the broadest sense of the word. To complicate the matter, however, there have recently been debates between the narrower and wider agendas in security studies. The wider agenda in security studies tends to broaden peace studies as well because an issue or problem like environmental degradation is claimed to be a peace studies issue on the ground that it is a security issue. Thus, peace studies will have to tackle with the same problem for some time to come.
Introduction: Old and New Agendas
Traditionally, the field of strategic studies has been dominated by influential Western military thinkers who focused on the causes of war and the uses of military power. The Cold War, which made the US-Soviet confrontation the central feature of strategic studies, reinforced these tendencies within the field. A few years on, we can now characterise the ‘old’ security agenda of the Cold War era. The primary foci of study were Europe, the great powers, and major war. In most analyses, the term ‘security’ was narrowly understood as protection of territory and population from military attack by foreign governments. Most discussion of conflict in the mainstream security literature assumed the prevention of war lay in some form of military deterrence.
What Happened to Suicide Bombings in Israel? Insights from a Terror Stock Model
An analysis of three years of suicide bombing data in Israel reveals an increase in such attacks through March 2002 followed by a steep decline through the end of 2003. The authors propose a terror-stock model that treats the suicide bombing attack rate as a function of the number of terrorists available to plan and execute suicide bombings. The intent of Israeli tactics such as targeted killings and preemptive arrests is to reduce the capacity of terror organizations to commit attacks. When fit to the data, this model suggests that the targeted killing of terror suspects sparks estimated recruitment to the terror stock that increases rather than decreases the rate of suicide bombings. Surprisingly, only the deaths of suspected terrorists, and not Palestinian civilians, are associated with such estimated recruitment. Although Israeli actions have reduced the rate of suicide bombings over time, it is preventive arrests rather than targeted killings that seem more responsible for this outcome.