Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict
BOOK REVIEWS
VIOLENCE AND ITS ALTERNATIVES: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY READER Edited by Manfred B. Steeger and Nancy S. Lind, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999.
"The argument underlying this volume is that our current perspectives on violence are too narrowly conceived; research approaches, theories of violence, and policy debates must be broadened."
-- Turpin & Katz (334)
Although stated by one of the contributors in relation to their own work rather than the editors themselves, this statement aptly summarizes the goals of Steeger and Lind's collection as a whole. Violence and its Alternatives is a 400-page collection of 35 different authors' reflections on the subject. With this interdisciplinary reader, the editors deliberately attempt to expand readers' conceptualizations of how violence is understood and defined. The result is an unusual and remarkable conversation between theorists and activists, psychologists and political scientists, religious leaders and revolutionaries.
The metaphor of the conversation is particularly apt given that the editors have selected pieces that frequently make reference to the works of other authors included in the collection. Together the selections build upon one another to establish an integrated corpus of concepts and arguments. Given the diversity of disciplinary perspectives represented in this collection, the establishment of such a high degree of interrelativity between the selected essays is all the more remarkable. This work contributes significantly to the establishment of a common interdisciplinary discourse and conceptual vocabulary for future peace studies.
To embark upon this conversation, however, requires a certain degree of diligence upon the part of the reader. In particular, the opening chapters begin with a deep exploration of fundamental theoretical, philosophical, and legalistic language and jargon that has the potential to drive away all but the most ardent academics and committed peace activists. The investment is worth the effort, however, and the need for common language and concepts becomes apparent as the selections branch out from definitional and legal concepts to address violence as it relates to gender, race, nationalism, and class midway through the volume.
Contributors include a veritable "who's who" of contemporary critical scholars, including many familiar mainstays of the postmodern and post-Marxist canons such as Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Jaques Derrida, Herbert Marcuse, George Lukacs, and Georges Sorel. Yet editor Manfred Steeger's own contribution reveals a desire to reframe these works in a new light, free of such canonical expectations. In his chapter, "An Autopsy of Marxist Socialism," Steeger pronounces political socialism dead, but seeks to repackage the critical insights of Marxist social criticism within the older Enlightenment paradigm of social justice, specifically within the language of "human rights." This theme of violence as a threat or abridgement of human rights runs throughout the volume as a whole and raises important questions regarding the most effective means of protecting and ensuring such rights around the globe.
The reframing of established scholarship is furthered with the inclusion of a number of more contemporary academic voices in this collection. Among the many notable contributions include Nancy Harstock and Andrea Dworkin's perspectives on gender, violence, and pornography; Cornel West and Manning Marble's contributions on violence and race; Arjun Appadurai and Akbar S. Ahmed's examination of nationalism and ethnic violence; David Nicholson's personal reflections on internalized violence, race and masculinity; and bell hooks' discussion of "beloved community" as a model for diverse, interdependent community building.
Perhaps more exciting and notable than the juxtaposition of any of the above academics is the pairing of such academic scholarship with the writings of those outside the academy. Malcolm X notes in the editor's selection of his work, "I don't usually deal with big words because I don't usually deal with big people. I deal with small people." It is refreshing to see an acknowledgement of the important contributions of everyday "small people" and their role in combating violence and the inclusion of discussions that do not always employ academic or legal jargon to articulate their case. Among others, the collection includes writings of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Burmese human rights advocate Aung San Suu Kyi. Gene Sharp's contribution, "Beyond Just War and Pacifism," also provides an important examination of contemporary Christian organizations' articulations and understandings of violence, conflict, and nonviolent alternatives. It is in the bridges this work creates between the languages of religious leaders, activists, and academics that the greatest strengths of this collection lie.
Furthermore, unlike most discussions of violence that are strong on critical analysis and weak on solutions, this collection at least portends to offer alternatives to violent conflict and behavior. The collection ends with a section devoted to discussions and models of nonviolence.
In particular, the editors' selections emphasize the need to legitimize nonviolent alternatives in a global society that sees violent measures as its only options. Hence, in addition to the classic spiritual or religious approaches to nonviolence expressed by Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., the selected authors also emphasize the efficacy of nonviolent social change as illustrated in examples such as the civil rights movement in the United States, the Filipino "People Power" movement, the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, the ten-year nonviolent struggle in Poland, and the "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia. These examples and many others effectively demonstrate that nonviolent protest can effect significant social change. Furthermore, such methods can be employed by ordinary individuals and need not be relegated to the purview of saints or holy men. Nonviolent methods represent simple and reasonable options that should be attempted before invoking notions of "justified use of force."
But while nonviolent means are offered as legitimate alternatives to short-term social conflicts, nearly all the authors agree long-term peace, security, and stability depends on change grounded not in political organization or even social architecture alone, but through long term cultural change. If we are ever to transcend violence -- locally, nationally, or globally -- we will need to engender a "culture of peace" that is built on mutual respect, tolerance, and, above all, interdependence with the diversity of others with whom we share this planet. With increased interdependence we can move toward a shared interest in "common security" in which violence toward any one group adversely effects us all.
In the face of revived nationalism, ethnic-cleansing, and stark economic inequalities, it is easy to write off notions of such a cultural transformation as mere idealism. At the same time, to the degree that re-education is a crucial step toward cultural reform, this collection is a significant contribution in providing peace educators with a broad base of interdisciplinary understanding and shared language through which to begin a transformation toward a peaceful society.
Geoffrey W. Bradshaw
Multicultural Office
Madison Area Technical College
Madison, Wisconsin
WARS IN THE MIDST OF PEACE: THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICS OF ETHNIC CONFLICT. Edited by David Carment and Patrick James, University of Pittsburgh Press.1997.
This edited volume attempts to address what Stavenhagen called the "paradigmatic blind spot" of International Relations as a field (p. 195): ethnicity. The articles attempt to address two questions: (1) what is the role of ethnicity in conflicts, irredentist conflicts. international relations theory; and (2) how does ethnicity affect intra- and interstate conflicts secession movements, and irredentist conflicts.
The authors are in agreement with reference to the first question. Dominant theories of International Relations, realism, neorealism, Marxism, world system, liberal and neoliberal, fail to incorporate ethnicity as a cause or effect in their explanation of world politics. In his article, John F. Stack, Jr., brilliantly illustrates how realism, liberalism, neolibealism, and Marxism all fail to explain the relevance of ethnicity. He calls for the creation of new theories that "envision the creation of national societies as very mcuh an ongo8ing process" (p. 24). Stack’s article serves as the springboard for the remainder of the articles that deal with the question of "how" to incorporate the concept of ethnicity into the field of international relations.
Four articles qualitatively address four important areas on interest: indigenous people, peaceful secession, systemic wars and conflict resolution. Gerald A. Alfred and Franke Wilmer examine the worldviews of indigenous people and that of the "modernizing" state. They successfully shatter the notion that the state is neutral on ethnic issues. Robert A. Young, after examining three historic cases of successful secession, attempts to provide lessons about the process and outcome. Unfortunately, the suggestions are too general and offer little in terms of specifics. Manus I. Milarsky applies the systemic war concept to the war in Yugoslavia both in the early and late 1900s. Unfortunately, the author offers too many ad hoc explanations and attempts unsuccessfully to "fit" the case into the systemic war theory. His insistence on the external aspects of the war is also not substantiated with evidence. Louis Kriesberg’s article provides actual policies that can be utilized to end ethnic wars. His constructivist approach and focus on conflict resolution makes this article the most important article in the book. This is the only article that actually provides useful information on not only why ethnic conflicts begin but also how to deal with them.
The remainder of the articles tend to be more causal and quantitative. Despite the authors emphasis on the importance of the theory, little theory is incorporated into their specific arguments. These articles deal with: diffusion of ehnic conflicts (Monty G. Marshall), interstate conflict (Zeev Moas). "minority dominated" states (Davis Janners and Moore), international crisis (Brecher and Wildenfeld), and secession and irredenta (Carment and James). While some of the modesl lpresented are well developed (in particular Brecher and Wilkenfeld), others are to preliminary (Davis, Jaggers and Moore). Some stress primarily internal factors (Carment and James), while others use a broader list of explanations. The relevance of one article to ethnicity is very tenuous (Maoz). Despite their differences, however, these represent the "first generation" of research on the topic of ethnicity and ethnic conflict. The two outstanding articles are by Brecher and Wilkenfeld, and Carment and James. Brecher and Wilkenfeld examine the relationship between crisis and ethnicity. They provide a very elaborate ethnicity crisis model. Their testing of eight hypotheses provides a wealth of information about ethnicity and crisis. Similarly, Carment and James provide a model that stresses two important domestic factors: ethnic composition and institutional makeup--defined as both elite-mass relations and institutional constraints placed on decision makers. Their approach is extremely innovative and provides a very promising framework to analyze ethnic conflicts in the future.
This book is recommended for upper-level undergraduate and or introductory graduate courses on theories of International/World Politics or Ethnic Conflict and Resolution. The inclusion of "evidence" means that familiarity with the quantitative approach is a must. The only shortcoming of the book is that it tends to focus too much on the external aspects of ethnicity and how it affects interstate conflict, as opposed to why ethnic conflicts begin and how to resolve it (only one article by Louis Kriesberg dealt directly with this issue). The strength of the book lies in the fact that there are diverse theoretical approaches to ethnicity (social construction, primordialist and instrumentalist), different levels of explanation (systemic, regional and domestic), and different topics that fall under the rubric of ethnicity (secession, irredenta, and intra- and interstate conflict).
Khalil Dokhanchi
Department of Political Science
University of Wisconsin Superior
JUSTICE AND PEACE: A CHRISTIAN PRIMER by J. Milburn Thompson. Orbis Books, New York, 1997.
"If you want peace, work for justice." This famous saying of Pope Paul VI is the acknowledged organizing theme of this outstanding introduction to global issues. It puts the challenge of world peace squarely within the context of the global struggle for basic justice for all.
The book is the fruit of Thompson’s twenty years of teaching peace and justice issues at St. Joseph College in West Hartford, Connecticut and is therefore, primarily addressed to college students enrolled in courses on Christian Social Ethics, War and Peace, Ethics and Foreign Policy, etc. the book, however, thankfully avoids the dry impersonality and pseudo objectivity of most introductory level textbooks. It is designed not just to inform—which it does in a scholarly way—but also to inspire. Thompson wants his students to become "active participants in public policy debates and catalysts for constructive change." He wants them to understand the profound ethical. political, and social implications of their faith, and to act accordingly.
Justice and Peace begins in a rather unusual manner with an historic review of "The Post Cold War World: How Did We Get Here?" Thompson analyses what he considers the three salient global forces of the past 500 years: 91) the powerful influence of colonialism beginning with Columbus and ending with contemporary neo-colonialism; (2) the Industrial Revolution fueled by the wealth amassed from colonialism; and (3) the rise and fall of the Cold War. This analysis lays down a unifying historical foundation for making sense out of the myriad of global problems besetting us today. Without some such historical context, a global issues class can easily degenerate into a laundry list of vaguely connected (or even disconnected) topics which fails to make any coherent sense of the "big picture," and leaves students adrift in a world of conceptual chaos.
Thompson has no qualms about ethically judging colonialism and neo-colonialism as forms of economic exploitation and racism. But like most Western critics he assumes that colonialism is somehow uniquely European or American and ignores obvious counter-examples such as Chinese and Japanese imperialism in Asia, Zulu conquests in Africa, the Arab and Ottoman expansion across North Africa, Spain, the Middle East and Balkans. As Johann Galtung, the father of modern peace studies once remarked, even American critics of war and structural injustice remain strangely Euro-centric. Next Thompson takes on the vexed problems of "poverty and development." Though replete with useful facts and figures, Thompson characteristically begins with a unifying ethical perspective:
Poverty is the bane of humankind. It is not a new problem, but the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and worsening today. This is ironic, tragic, and unjust, because, perhaps for the first time in human history, there is enough wealth on earth to meet the basic needs of every person. Until the misery and degradation of billions of brothers and sisters is alleviated there will be no justice, and there will be no peace (p.29).
Thompson explains his own passion for economic and social justice by telling his own personal journey of discovery. During a sabbatical in 1990 he visited poor Christian communities in the Philippines in what he calls a "transforming experience" (p. 29). He became haunted by the sea of human destitution and misery punctuated with isolated islands of outrageous wealth. On Smoky Mountain, the garbage dump for Manila, he talked with people who lived amidst overwhelming stench and misery, eking out a living by collecting and selling scrap. He reflect on this from a global perspective:
One out of every five persons on earth lives on less than a dollar a day. Out of every twelve children born, at least one dies before his or her first birthday. Every three seconds, somewhere in the world, a child dies as a result of malnutrition. That’s over 1,000every hour, 30,000 every day, 10 million every year. It is as if every morning Camden Yards, the baseball stadium in Baltimore, were to be filled with children and by evening all were dead. What is wrong with the world that such suffering can exist? (p. 30)
This is a good example of how Thompson integrates vivid personal experience, relevant statistical data, and critical moral questioning to make an issue come alive for the reader.
Later chapters take on additional topics in similar style: population growth and environmental destruction (Chapter 3); human rights (Chapter 4); ehno-nationalist conflict (Chapter 5); peace through common security in tthepsot-cold world (Chapter 7). The book concludes with an explicity theological chapter on "Jesus, Catho9lic SociAL Teaching and Christian Citizenship." In each case, Thompson deftly synthesizes relevant statistical data within a framework of critical moral questioning and civic concern. While the book is grounded in a strong religious and ethical tradition of liberation theology and progressive Catholic social teaching, it never degenerates into dogmatism or sectarianism. I plan on using it in teaching my own "Philosophy of Peace and Justice" class at Edgewood College.
The main weakness of the book is its lack of coverage of peace movements and "people-power" movements for social justice. The past decade or so has seen massive nonviolent people’s movements in the Philippines, Poland Czechoslovakia, East Germany, China, Burma, and Tibet. Students can draw realistic hope and inspiration by seeing "Truth-Force" in action throughout the world. Nevertheless, Thompson does conclude his book with an extensive description of social change and peace organizations which he encourages students to become involved in.
Justice and Peace is a book for people who want to be more than spectators on the overwhelming drama of global violence. It is for those who want to become informed and engaged citizens and in their own small way "catalysts for constructive change."
Vincent Kavaloski
Philosophy Department
Edgewood College
Madison, Wisconsin
SOVIET SCIENCE UNDER CONTROL: THE STRUGGLE FOR INFLUENCE by Jeffrey L. Roberg. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1998.
This book is a welcome contribution to both the literature on the role of science and scientists in in public policy in general and Soviet policy-making in particular. There is already a well developed and growing literature on scientists and policy making in the West. Peter Haas and others have been looking at scientists as "epistemic communities,’ groups of experts, that inform and help shape the debate on such issues a s global warming, ozone and other environmental issues. There are also several studies on the development of nuclear policy in the US and Europe. Most of these studies focus on the role of scientists in international organizations or western democracies. To date however, the role of scientists in authoritarian regimes has been relatively ignored. In the case of the Soviet Union, the assumption has long been that Soviet science was under the complete control of the Communist Party and, therefore, that, scientists had no influence on policy whatsoever. Roberg challenges this assertion and argues that. indeed, some Soviet scientists were able to exercise a limited amount of influence on policy matters.
The book provides a basic overview of science politics in the Soviet Union and focuses on nuclear scientists arguing that the importance of nuclear scientists to the Soviet defense effort and their prestige gave them special leverage to try and exert influence on policy decisions of concern to them. Two case studies are examined; nuclear policy and human rights. In the case of nuclear weapons, Soviet experts were concerned with the moral dilemmas posed by the weapons they helped to create. Not content with being mere bomb makers they wanted to have an impact on policy. In a detailed analysis that makes good use of Russian language material, Roberg shows how and why key Soviet scientists were able to help promote the Limited Test Ban Treaty but were unsuccessful in proposing a complete moratorium on nuclear weapons tests. Here Roberg’s study makes an excellent companion to the existing studies on the role of American scientists in helping to formulate American policy in the 1950s and 1960s. In the case of human rights, Roberg shows how the concerns of individual scientists such as Sakharov spilled over from their area of expertise, nuclear weapons, to wider issues. The importance of these scientists gave them access to authorities and a degree of freedom to express their views that were not available to others though only in a few human rights cases were they able to exert a positive influence.
This reviewer wishes that Roberg had done more with the cross national comparisons between US and Soviet scientists and their common professional and moral concerns. The book might also have benefited from further discussion of other branches of Soviet science. Nevertheless it is an interesting study that adds to our knowledge of the policy-making in the
Soviet Union and will contribute to the debate on how scientists can influence political decisions related to their areas of expertise. This book will also be of interest to those concerned with human rights issues in the Soviet Union and nuclear policy. Roberg does a very good job with the Russian language materials and the book is rich in empirical detail. Recommended.
Thomas Bickford
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
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