The Peace Continuum: What It Is and How to Study It (Studies in Strategic Peacebuilding)

The idea of studying peace has gained considerable traction in the past few years after languishing in the shadows of conflict for decades but how should it be studied? The Peace Continuum offers a parallax view of how we think about peace and the complexities that surround the concept (i.e., the book explores the topic from different positions at the same time). Toward this end, we review existing literature and provide insights into how peace should be conceptualized - particularly as something more interesting than the absence of conflict. We provide an approach that can help scholars overcome what we see as the initial shock that comes with unpacking the 'zero' in the war-peace model of conflict studies. Additionally, we provide a framework for understanding how peace and conflict have/have not been related to one another in the literature. To reveal how the Peace Continuum could be applied, we put forward three alternative ways that peace could be studied. With this approach, the book is less trying to control the emerging peace research agenda than it is trying to assist in/encourage thinking about the topic that we all have some opinion on but that has yet to be measured and analyzed in a way comparable to political conflict and violence. Indeed, we attempt to help facilitate a veritable explosion of approaches and efforts to study peace.

Christian Davenport is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, as well as Global Fellow and Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. His primary research interests include political conflict (e.g., human rights violations, genocide/politicide, torture, political surveillance, civil war and social movements), measurement, racism and popular culture. He is the author of seven books and numerous articles appearing in the American Political Science Review, the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Comparative Political Studies, and the Monthly Review (among others). Davenport is also engaged in various data collection efforts, developing crowd-sourcing data collection programs and co-organizing workshops/conferences/webportals facilitating the development of conflict/peace studies.

Erik Melander is a Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden. His research interests concern gender, masculinities, armed conflict, and peace. His articles have been published in journals such as European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict resolution, Journal of Gender Studies, and Journal of Peace Research. He has experience from field-work in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Russia, South Africa, Thailand and the Yugoslav Federation.

Patrick M. Regan is a professor of political science and peace studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He researches the impact of climate change and social adaptation on armed conflict. His most recent book, The Politics of Global Climate Change (Paradigm, 2015), articulates a multi-level political process for influencing climate change legislation, beginning with local politics.