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Second, participatory research validates popular knowledge, personal experience and feelings, and artistic and spiritual expressions as useful ways of knowing. If researchers are to work with community members as co-investigators, they must respect people’s knowledge. Moreover, one of the rationales for community participation in research is the assumption that people understand many aspects of their situation better than outsiders do. Practitioners have used group discussions, photography, theater, and traditional tales to draw on popular knowledge (Barndt 1980; Luttrell 1988).

A focus on power and empowerment also distinguishes most participatory research. ‘‘The core issue in participatory research is power. . . the transformation of power structures and relationships as well as the empowerment of oppressed people,’’ states Patricia Maguire in her excellent analysis of the field (1987, p. 37). Participatory researchers differ widely in their positions on empowerment, and include radicals who try to transform the power structure by mobilizing peasants to wrest land from the ruling class, as well as conservatives who ignore power relations and focus on limited improvements such as building a clinic or a collective irrigation system.

The fourth characteristic of participatory re- search—consciousness raising and education—is closely related to power. Group discussions and projects typically attempt to reduce participants’ feelings of self-blame and incompetence, and try to relate personal problems to unequal distributions of power in the community and the society. Participants often become visibly more confident and effective as they speak out in discussions, learn that others share some of their experiences, and learn research skills and relevant technical information.

Finally, participatory research includes political action, especially action that cultivates ‘‘critical consciousness’’ and is oriented toward structural change, not toward adjusting people to oppressive environments (Brown and Tandon 1983). Some scholars argue that ‘‘real’’ participatory research must include actions that radically reduce inequality and produce ‘‘social transformation.’’ Research and action, from this perspective, should be guided by a general theory like Marxism to help identify the underlying causes of inequality and the best strategies for changing society. Others

caution against expecting to achieve radical changes because ‘‘social transformation requires . . . organizing, mobilizing, struggle’’ as well as knowledge (Tandon 1988, p. 12). These researchers point to the value of small collective actions in educating people about the local power structure, creating greater solidarity and feelings of power, and providing new knowledge about how power is maintained and challenged. Many projects include little or no collective action and are limited to changing the behavior of individual participants, strengthening or ‘‘creating a community network’’ and ‘‘fostering critical knowledge’’ (Park 1978, p. 20).

In some cases, participatory research produces major changes, as exemplified by a project with residents of a small town in the state of Washington. The town was going to be destroyed by the expansion of a dam, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was planning to disperse the community. But with the assistance of Professor Russell Fox and numerous undergraduates from Evergreen State College, residents clarified their own goals for a new community, learned about the planning process, and produced a town-sponsored plan for a new town. Their plan was accepted by the Corps of Engineers after prolonged struggle involving the courts and the U.S. Congress. The new town thrived and continued to involve the entire community in planning decisions (Comstock and Fox 1982).

A study of the working conditions of bus drivers in Leeds, England, illustrates the mixed results that are more typical of participatory research. As a result of greater pressure at work accompanying Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s program of deregulation, bus drivers were experiencing increasing stress, accidents, and conflicts at home (Forrester and Ward 1989). With the help of professors from the University of Leeds who were running an adult education program for workers, a group of eight bus drivers, selected by their local union, decided to do research that would investigate stress at work and motivate the drivers’ union to take action. They designed and carried out a survey of a sample of drivers and their families, studied accident records, and measured physical signs of stress. Although the report presenting their findings failed to produce the desired action by the union, the project was successful in many other ways—workers’ stress became part of the

agenda for the union and the national government, and the report was used by workers in other countries to document the need for improved working conditions. The participants in the research gained research skills and knowledge about work stress, and the professors produced academic papers on work stress and participatory research. The professors had a dual accountability (as they put it) both to the bus workers and to the university; their projects produced results that were valuable to both groups.

THE HISTORY OF THE FIELD AND RELATIONS TO OTHER FIELDS

Participatory research was developed primarily by Third World researchers, and most projects have been in Third World communities. In the 1970s it became clear that mainstream economic development projects were failing to reduce poverty and inequality. In response, researchers began to develop alternative approaches that increased the participation of the poor in development programs and aimed at empowering poor rural and urban communities as well as improving their standard of living (Huizer 1979; Tandon 1981, 1988). For example, in the Jipemoyo Project in Tanzania, researchers and villagers investigated traditional music and dance practices and developed cooperative, small-scale industries based on these traditions, such as the production of ‘‘selo drums’’ for sale in urban areas (Kassam and Mustafa 1982). In other projects, peasants and farmers participated with agricultural and social scientists to determine the most appropriate and productive farming methods. Several projects in Latin America, led by Orlando Fals Borda and labeled ‘‘participatory action research,’’ integrated the knowledge of peasant activists and academics to build rural organizations and social movements.

Participatory researchers in the Third World are closely associated with Paulo Freire, an exiled Brazilian educator with roots in Marxism and critical theory. His book Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the most influential work in participatory research. Freire argues that teaching and research should not be dominated by experts but should be based on dialogue with a community of oppressed people. Through dialogue and collective action, people can develop critical consciousness, learn the

skills they need to improve their situation, and liberate themselves. A similar approach has been developed by the influential Highlander Research and Education Center in the southern United States. Organized by Myles Horton and others in the 1930s, Highlander has inspired many participatory researchers with its success in educating and empowering poor rural people (Gaventa and Horton 1981; Gaventa et al. 1990). Another important center of participatory research has been the Participatory Research Network in Toronto, focusing on adult education (Hall 1975, 1981).

The development of participatory research in the 1970s was also fostered by challenges to positivist social science by feminists, Marxists, critical theorists, and others (Bernstein 1983; Harding 1986). The critics emphasized the links between knowledge and power. They argued that the positivists’ emphasis on objectivity, detachment, and valuefree inquiry often masked a hidden conservative political agenda, and encouraged research that justified domination by experts and elites and devalued oppressed people. The critics proposed alternative paradigms that integrated research and theory with political action, and gave the people being studied more power over the research (Carr and Kemmis 1986; Lather 1986; Rose 1983).

The development of alternative paradigms, together with the emergence of participatory research in the Third World and the politicial activism accompanying social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, sparked a variety of participatory research projects by North American social scientists. John Gaventa investigated political and economic oppression in Appalachian communities, and grass-roots efforts to challenge the status quo, and Peter Park criticized mainstream sociology from the perspective of participatory research and critical theory. Health-related issues such as wifebattering, health collectives, and toxic wastes were studied by Patricia Maguire and others, while researchers in education examined community efforts to improve public schools and participatory methods of teaching (Luttrell 1988). Issues at the workplace such as struggles for unionization have been investigated by many participatory researchers; they have documented the impact of factors such as ethnic divisions and women’s work culture on the success of unionization (Bookman and Morgen 1988).

Participatory research is closely related to several other fields. Feminist approaches to research and teaching often closely resemble participatory research and emphasize nonhierarchical relations between researcher and researched, raising consciousness, taking action against sexism and other forms of domination, and valuing expressive forms of knowledge (see Smith 1987; Stanley and Wise 1983). Feminists have done the majority of the participatory research projects in North America, but they do not use the label, and feminists and participatory researchers rarely consult each other’s work.

A similar approach has been developed by William F. Whyte, who works with representatives of managment and workers to study organizational problems such as reducing production costs, or redesigning training programs. His approach differs from participatory research in that it gives little attention to power and empowerment, or to consciousness raising and education, and the action component of the projects is coordinated with management and does not directly challenge the existing power structure. Whyte labels his approach ‘‘participatory action research,’’ which will cause confusion since the same term is used to describe Orlando Fals Borda’s very different, more radical approach.

Participatory research also overlaps with several traditional social science methods, especially participant observation, ethnography, and intensive interviews, all of which rely on empathic interpretation of popular knowledge and everyday experience and that lead researchers to be engaged with the people being studied, not detached from them. Applied research also focuses on social action, but usually for the privileged—those with the money and sophistication to employ researchers or consultants.

ISSUES IN PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH

Two issues underlie many of the problems confronted by academic participatory researchers: the relations between researchers and the researched; and the tensions between being politically active and producing objective, academic studies.

Relations between researchers and researched are problematic at each stage of a participatory

research project (on stages, see Maguire 1987; Vio Grossi 1981; Hall 1981). At the beginning of the project the researchers must consider what segments of the community will participate. Although some participatory researchers talk about ‘‘the oppressed’’ people in a community or ‘‘the poor’’ as if they were a homogeneous group, most communities are complex and internally stratified, and the more powerless people usually are more difficult to include.

The power of the researcher versus the researched also is problematic in the next stage of a project, when participants identify and discuss community problems. Researchers have specific skills in facilitating the group and obtaining information, and typically have more time, money, and other resources. Therefore, they can take more responsibility (and power) in the project, and community members often want a researcher to take charge in some areas. There are also conflicts during group discussions between validating participants’ knowledge and power versus educating for critical consciousness and validating the researchers’ power (Vio Grossi 1981).

When the project moves to the stage of designing research on community problems, researchers are especially likely to have a power advantage, since community members typically lack the skills and the interest to carry out this task. If community members are to be equal participants in designing a complex research project, they first need an extended educational program like the adult education classes for the Leeds bus drivers. Otherwise, the research probably will have to be fairly limited, or the researchers will control the research design, while community members participate as consultants and trained research assistants. In this case it becomes especially important that community members have substantial power in setting the research agenda (e.g., Merrifield 1989).

Conflicts between activism and involvement versus academic objectivity and detachment are another source of problems. However, many of the problems can be resolved by questioning the assumed incompatibility between being involved with the people one is studying and producing objective or valid evidence. On the one hand, involved researchers often produce valid knowledge. Sociology and anthropology include many

examples of systematic, highly regarded ethnographies and interview studies by researchers who were very involved with the community. Moreover, participating as an activist probably yields just as valid an account as being a traditional participant observer. On the other hand, research methods associated with being detached, such as surveys and quantitative analysis, often contribute to effective political action. For example, a research group in Bombay organized a participatory census of pavement dwellers in a large slum. Their results documented that slum dwellers had been underenumerated by the official census and had been unjustly denied census-dependent services. Participants also created strong community organizations and learned how to use existing services (Patel 1988). In this project, community involvement and academic standards were compatible. In other projects, participatory researchers have experienced many conflicts between serving the interests of the community being researched, and producing knowledge that is valuable to the academic community.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Participatory research methods have gradually spread through the social sciences and related fields in recent years. Researchers in health (Cornwall and Jewkes 1995; Mishra et. al. 1998), family sociology (Small 1995), community psychology (Stoecker and Beckwith 1992; Yeich and Levine 1992), and other fields are using participatory research methods. Several journals have devoted special issues to participatory research, including American Sociologist (Stoecker and Bonacich 1992, 1993), The Journal of Social Issues (Bryden-Miller 1997) and Human Relations (Chisholm and Elden 1993). New books on participatory research also have appeared (De Koning and Martin 1996; FalsBorda and Roshman 1991; Park et al. 1993).

The growing numbers of studies using participatory research methods vary widely in the degree to which they depart from traditional social science methods. In most studies, control over the research design remains with the researcher, although the researched may have power over a limited component of the project. In addition, many studies do not include social action as part of the project. As participatory research continues to

develop, researchers will continue to struggle with balancing the power of the researcher and the researched, and with the conflicting demands of activism and academic standards.

(SEE ALSO: Field Research Methods; Qualitative Methods;

Social Movements)

REFERENCES

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Small, Stephen A. 1995 ‘‘Action-Oriented Research: Models and Methods.’’ Journal of Marriage and the Family 57:941–956.

Smith, Dorothy 1987 The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Stanley, Liz, and Sue Wise 1983 Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Stoecker, Randy, and David Beckwith 1992 ‘‘Advancing Toledo’s Neighborhood Movement through Participatory Action Research: Integrating Activist and Academic Approaches.’’ Clinical Sociology Review 10:198–213.

Stoecker, Randy, and Edna Bonacich (eds.) 1992, 1993 American Sociologist. Special Issues on Participatory Research, Part I, 23 no. 4 (Winter 1992); Part II, 24, no. 1 (Spring 1993).

Tandon, Rajesh 1981 ‘‘Participatory Research in the Empowerment of People.’’ Convergence 14:20–29.

——— 1988 ‘‘Social Transformation and Participatory Research.’’ Convergence 21:5–18.

Vio Grossi, Francisco 1981 ‘‘Socio-Political Implications of Participatory Research.’’ Convergence 14:43–51.

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Journal of Applied Social Psychology 22:1894–1908.

FRANCESCA M. CANCIAN

CATHLEEN ARMSTEAD

PEACE

Humans have always prized and sought peace. The conditions believed to foster peace and the very conception of peace, however, have varied in different periods and cultures. In this article, we examine contemporary scholarly understandings of peace and how to achieve and maintain peace (Barash 1991; Galtung 1996; Stephenson 1994). In particular, we discuss the views of American sociologists and other social scientists who regard themselves as engaged in peace studies, peace research, conflict resolution, and related fields.

The concept of peace is contested. Some analysts use the term ‘‘peace’’ in opposition to war; this is negative peace, defined as the absence of direct physical violence. Other analysts stress positive peace, defined as social relations marked by considerable equality in life chances, by justice, or even by harmony. Some writers use the term ‘‘peace’’ to refer only to relations among global actors in a world system, while others include relations among persons and groups as well as among countries. Finally, some observers regard peace as a stable condition and others think of it as many never-ending processes.

In this article, we discuss certain aspects of positive peace, while focusing on negative peace. Furthermore, we emphasize international peace, but also consider large-scale relations within societies. With these focuses, we examine three categories of peace processes: (1) building peace, developing processes that prevent the emergence of destructive conflicts; (2) making peace, developing processes that contribute to deescalation and settlement of conflicts; and (3) keeping and restoring

peace, fostering processes that help maintain peace and construct equitable relations.

BUILDING PEACE

The analysts providing the research and theorizing examined here and in the next sections vary in the relative importance they give to variables and conditions from different sources: from within one or more of the contending parties, from the relationship among them, and from their social context. Each is discussed in turn.

Internal Factors. Considerable work has been done about the processes and the conditions within countries that contribute to international peace or war and within large-scale groups that contribute to societal peace or destructive conflict. One such body of work stresses the role of self-serving elites in arousing, sustaining, and exacerbating antagonisms against other countries or groups. For example, during the years of the Cold War, many observers analyzed the existence and effects of a political–military–industrial complex in promoting the arms buildup in the United States and in the Soviet Union (Mills 1956; Sanders 1983).

More recently, peace workers have been directing their attention to political and intellectual elites who develop and promote ethno-nationalist ideologies. The way such ideologies are based on a socially constructed history and shared community is the subject of considerable analyses (Anderson 1991). In addition, many analysts stress the contribution that such ideologies make to the emergence and exacerbation of bitter fights and of genocide (Anthony Smith 1991). Finally, observers often examine how military, political, and intellectual leaders promote such ideologies for their personal benefit.

Peace workers believe that analyzing such processes demystifies them and their products. Furthermore, they believe that such unmasking undermines the effectiveness of those seeking to mobilize followers to wage struggles that deny legitimacy to their opponents. This kind of critical analysis is a major form of peace research.

Another large body of writing about building peace examines the education and socialization of members of a society or group in ways that promote peace. This includes research and theorizing about the ways this has been done and about the

ways that it might be done. The feminist scholarly perspective is an influential source for important contributions to this body of work. For example, using this perspective, the invisibility of women in studies of conflicts and peace processes becomes apparent, and feminist scholars provide new insights into international and domestic conflicts by paying attention to the roles women play in such conflicts (Enloe 1989). Furthermore, considerable research demonstrates consistent differences between women and men regarding support for the use of military means in international conflicts. The popular expectations, however, tend to exaggerate the degree to which men and women differ in their conduct in conflicts and negotiations (Stephenson 1996; Taylor and Miller 1994).

Feminist work tends to emphasize that the gender differences that do exist result significantly from past socialization of males and females into gender roles and from patriarchal social structures. Men learn to be relatively competitive and hierarchical, while women emphasize integrative relations. The feminist perspective fosters a vision that social relationships could be less patriarchal and therefore less unjust and less prone to destructive conflict than they generally have been.

How language and imagery are used to give meaning to conflicts helps frame conflicts and thus affects how they are waged. For example, analysts examine how the mass media and films contribute to an overreliance on violence and the threat of violence to wage conflicts (Gibson 1995). Such work also illuminates the processes of dehumanization of opponents in social conflicts, as well as revealing how such dehumanization contributes to the destructive escalation of struggles.

Since conflicts are inherent in social life, the role of social structure and culture in shaping how conflicts are waged is highly significant for building peace. Analysts are giving increasing attention to variations in the repertoire of methods used to conduct conflicts, including constructive ones, that are available for different people in different historical periods (Tilly 1978). Efforts to study and to train people in the methods of nonviolent action and problem-solving conflict resolution methods therefore contribute to building peace internationally and domestically (Kriesberg 1998).

Relational Factors. Several aspects of the relations among global and among societal actors

affect the likelihood that those actors will interact peacefully. One long-standing area of peace studies has been the effect of integration between societies and of sectors within societies. Integration is indicated by the high rate of exchange of goods, peoples, and ideas across societal and group lines, relative to exchanges within. Research findings support the generalization that such integration enhances mutual security and reduces the probability of countries’ waging wars or threatening each other’s security. Increased integration not only creates greater bonds of mutual interest and identity, but also improves communication and exchanges that parties regard as equitable. Furthermore, research on ethnic and other cleavages within societies also indicates the importance of integration, cross-cutting ties, and shared identities in preventing such cleavages from manifesting themselves in destructive conflicts (Dahrendorf 1959; Kriesberg 1998).

Considerable evidence has been reported indicating that democratic countries do not make war against each other (Gleditsch and Heegre 1997). Although the finding and particularly its interpretation are contested, the finding seems robust, given particular definitions of democracy and war. The finding may be explained by the tendency of governments in democratic societies to accord legitimacy to each other and credibility to each other’s claims. Furthermore, negotiating differences may tend to be regarded as more acceptable and more skillfully practiced in democratic than in nondemocratic societies.

Contextual Factors. The social context within which possible adversaries interact certainly affects their relations. The context includes the social system within which adversaries interact, including the overall level of integration, the nature of institutional structures, the likelihood of external intervention in conflicts, and the kind of norms that are shared. The concepts of positive peace and structural violence help in understanding the relationship between social context and peace. Unlike personal violence, structural violence is indirect. It refers to the ‘‘avoidable denial of what is needed to satisfy fundamental needs’’ (Galtung 1980, p. 67). Thus, structural conditions may damage and cut short people’s lives by restrictions of human rights or by malnutrition and illness, while other people using available knowledge and resources do not suffer the same deprivations. Such

inequities are built into the global order and constitute negative peace. This influential idea has stimulated various studies, particularly regarding conditions in peripheral or underdeveloped regions. The literature about the development of the world system and of colonialism obviously bears on this matter (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997).

The expansion in the number, scope, and size of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) is a subject of growing sociological attention, reflecting INGOs’ increasing global importance. Many kinds of transnational organizations perform activities and are arenas for interactions that supplement or even compete with states and with international governmental organizations. INGOs include multinational corporations, religious and ideological organizations, professional and trade associations, trade union federations, and ethnic associations. These groupings provide important bases of transnational identity and action (Smith et al. 1997).

Critical analysts view these developments as part of a new global order in which a transnational elite exercises hegemonic domination. Their work stresses the increasing global inequality and the development of a transnational elite that fosters globalization and profits from it. From this perspective, the U.S. government’s promotion of democracy throughout the world is a method of maintaining order while promoting free markets and capitalism. Democracy, in this context, means polyarchy, a system in which a small group rules and mass participation is limited to choosing leaders in managed elections (Robinson 1996, p. 49).

International and supranational governmental organizations are also taking on increasing importance; witness the peacekeeping activities of the United Nations after the Cold War. Social scientists, including sociologists, have examined the conditions in which such institutions emerge and survive, how they serve to improve the quality of life, and how they may help to prevent conflicts from erupting and escalating destructively (Etzioni 1965).

The people of the world are already highly interdependent and are becoming increasingly so. This is true at the societal and at the global level. The flow of goods, capital, labor, ideas, and information is ever faster, ever less expensive, and ever more extensive. Consequently, the people of the

world share problems relating to environmental threats, governmental abuse and brutal conflicts spurring large-scale refugee flows, dislocations resulting from rapid social change, and challenging social relations among groups that are culturally different.

These phenomena contribute to the growing homogenization of the world. More and more people share images, ideas, and norms relating to consumer preferences, forms of entertainment, the protection of human rights, and economic development. But these phenomena also generate particularistic reactions and threaten destructive conflicts within and between societies. Experiences with these phenomena around the world and within each society are not the same for everyone. Some people reject the spreading secularism and the dominance of Western, particularly American, ideas and power. The empirical contradictions and the moral dilemmas arising from these developments are increasingly matters of inquiry among peace workers (Boulding 1990).

MAKING PEACE

Recent peace work has focused on limiting the destructive escalation of conflicts, fostering transitions toward deescalation, and conducting negotiations that help end conflicts constructively. Internal, relational, and contextual factors contribute to these ways of making peace.

Internal Factors. Among internal factors, sociological work attends particularly to popular forces that pressure governments to move toward accommodations with external adversaries. This interest combines with the growth in theory and research about social movements to generate many studies of peace movements (Lofland 1993; Marullo and Lofland 1990). Analyses of campaigns against nuclear weapons and other evidence indicate that, at least within the United States and western Europe, public opinion and organized public pressure have influenced governments, often in the direction of peacemaking (Joseph 1993; Klandermans 1991).

In addition, certain internal structural factors can help leaders to recognize the needs of the other side and to communicate responsiveness. Such factors may include leaders who are accorded legitimacy, openness to considering alternative

courses of action, sources of good information about outside groups, and norms limiting intolerance. Such factors and specific policy-making procedures can help limit escalation, manage crises, and negotiate settlements (Wilensky 1967).

Relational Factors. Most work on peacemaking focuses on the relations between adversaries, including analyses of tacit bargaining, formal and informal negotiations, and providing mutual reassurance about security. The relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, and their alliances during the Cold War, has been the subject of considerable study. Contributions have been made about the extent to which that conflict and the proxy wars associated with it were based on misunderstandings and on processes of dehumanization that fostered conflict escalation (Gamson and Modigliani 1971).

Other writing has drawn from and contributes to studies of problem-solving conflict resolution and conflict transformation. This work includes the analysis of ways of waging struggles constructively so that escalation is limited, and so that possibilities of reaching mutually acceptable accommodations are not foreclosed. This is an argument examined in studies of the use of nonviolent action, as in the American civil rights struggle and in many other conflicts (Powers and Vogele 1997; Wehr et al. 1994; Sharp 1973).

Work on relational aspects of peacemaking also includes analyses of conciliatory gestures and other initiatives to deescalate conflicts, of the management of crises, of the transformation of intractable conflicts into tractable ones, and of strategies and techniques for negotiating mutually acceptable agreements (Patchen 1988). It also includes the efforts by persons in one camp to exchange information and possible options for peacemaking with their counterparts in the opposing camp, through conferences, dialogue groups, and ongoing workshops.

The ending of the Cold War illustrates the success of some of these methods (Kriesberg 1992). Specifically, such methods include negotiating mutual assurances that vital interests would not be threatened, as was done in the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, resulting in the Helsinki Accords, signed in 1975. Included in the Accords was a shared commitment to norms, for example, about protecting human rights, which

fostered increased mutual exchanges. In addition, the American and Soviet military alliances established confidence-building measures and later restructured their military forces to be less provocative. Nonofficial channels such as the Pugwash meetings and the Dartmouth conference assisted in reaching agreements that helped to transform the Cold War. These developments have served as inspirations for efforts to limit or transform other regional conflicts.

The transformation of the conflict in South Africa about apartheid is another important illustration of the effectiveness of some of these methods (Kriesberg 1998). For example, the African National Congress (ANC), with the leadership of Nelson Mandela, consistently pursued nonracist goals, thus offering assurance that whites were and would remain recognized as South Africans. The means used in the struggle to end apartheid were considered in that light; they were initially nonviolent, and even when the decision to wage armed struggle was undertaken, terrorism was excluded. Informal and unofficial communications prepared the adversaries for working out an agreement that was acceptable to all the major adversaries in the seemingly intractable conflict in South Africa (van der Merwe 1989).

Of course, in some cases when challengers initiated nonviolent struggles, they were repressed or the conflicts escalated destructively. Such cases, as in China and in Northern Ireland, deserve and have received attention. However, there are many case studies and quantitative analyses indicating that reliance on violence and threat of violence is frequently counterproductive and often mutually destructive (Vasquez 1993).

Contextual Relations. One important aspect of a conflict’s context, affecting its transformation and its peaceful settlement, is the involvement of intermediaries. Analysts using a sociological approach give attention to the role of nonofficial persons and groups as well as official intermediaries. Such intermediaries often provide a variety of mediating services, including helping bring adversaries to the negotiating table, facilitating meetings, aiding in developing new options, building support for an agreement, and helping to implement and to sustain an agreement that is reached (Burton 1990; Laue 1973). Persons and groups providing such services vary greatly in the way

adversaries understand their role and in the resources they bring with them. For example, unofficial mediators with relatively few material resources may be able to provide exploratory services relatively well, since their engagement generally involves low risks for the antagonists. Mediators with a major stake in the fight and with great resources can provide compensations and assurances that are relatively important in closing negotiations and implementing them.

The U.S. government and U.S. private citizens have played important mediating roles in many international and even internal conflicts in other countries (Kriesberg 1992). American mediation in Israeli-Arab conflicts has been particularly extensive and often crucially effective. U.S. secretaries of state and U.S. presidents have conducted major mediating efforts, often using considerable resources to induce the negotiating parties to conclude an agreement and to implement it. Among the notable agreements reached are those mediated by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1974 between Israel and Egypt and between Israel and Syria, and the 1978 Camp David agreements between Israel and Egypt, mediated by President Jimmy Carter and leading to the two countries’ signing a peace treaty.

Nonofficial persons and groups from the United States have also provided mediation services, for example in the conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Nonofficial channels have been particularly important due to the long-standing refusal of the Israeli government to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the representative of the Palestinians. Jewish and Palestinian Americans have often had the knowledge, interest, and contacts to provide useful channels for exploring possible options and ways of taking steps toward official mediation and negotiation.

Mediation efforts, obviously, do not always succeed. Many efforts never result in agreements. In some cases, agreements are reached but not ratified or not implemented. On occasion, agreements are followed by disastrous breakdowns, as happened in Rwanda in 1994. Of course, failing to mediate probably would not have yielded better results. Nevertheless, this indicates that we need to know much more about the type of mediation that tends to be effective at each stage of various kinds of conflicts.

Among the many other relevant contextual factors, we note only a few. First, changes in prevailing norms and understandings sometimes embolden one party in a conflict and undermine the faith of its opponent. The result is that a conflict that has long persisted can move toward resolution. For example, changing views about human rights and democracy contributed to ending the civil wars in Central America and apartheid in South Africa.

The context also includes a wide range of international governmental and nongovernmental organizations, with varying capabilities of contributing to peacemaking. The mass media are also increasing the global attention to especially terrible events at particular times. Finally, the increasing availability of weapons of all kinds enables more and more people to challenge existing conditions, as well as enabling those in authority to resort to violent means of control.

KEEPING AND RESTORING PEACE

The recent transformation and settlement of protracted international and societal conflicts and the radical transformation of previously authoritarian and repressive societies have heightened attention to the challenges of building postconflict relations that are enduring and just (Lederach 1997). Changes within one or more antagonist camps and between former antagonists are crucial in meeting these challenges. In recent years, analysts have given particular attention to the role of intermediaries, standards of human rights, and other elements of the antagonists’ social context.

Internal Factors. A fundamental change in ways of thinking among members of one or more antagonistic sides can be a powerful factor in producing an enduring peace between them. This does sometimes happen. For example, most Germans after the defeat of Nazism repudiated what they themselves had believed and done; instead, they welcomed beliefs, values, and institutions shared with the victors. To some extent, a similar transformation occurred among Russians as the Cold War ended. As a result of the American civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s, most southern American whites became convinced that they were wrong to resist ending the Jim Crow system of discrimination. Similarly, most South African