UNIT 1 WHAT IS PEACE?

Structure
1.1 Introduction
Aims and Objectives

1.2 Defining Peace

1.3 Types and Levels of Peace
1.4 Means of Creating and Sustaining Peace
1.5 Peace for What and How?
1.6 Summary
1.7 Terminal Questions
Suggested Readings

1.1 INTRODUCTION
I am convinced that a non-violent society can be built only on the foundation of harmony
and cooperation, without which society is bound to remain violent. If we argue that this
cannot be done it will mean that a non violent society can never come into being. In that
case our entire culture would be meaningless.
Mahatma Gandhi
Peace is essential for individual well-being. Peace is an integral part of normal social life and
relations. If peace is lost, man’s existence loses its smooth, flawless tenor. With peace lost,
man’s equanimity, too, is adversely affected, if not completely lost. Uncertainty increases,
doubt in man’s capacity to cope with life’s problems raises its ugly head, and social relations
tend to be clouded with feelings of insecurity. It is not, therefore, surprising to find disturbed
men begging for peace of mind and people in general hoping for the early return of peace if
war breaks out. All this shows that peace is an essential condition for both the individual’s
personal life and social relations.
Despite the centrality of peace for a regular and regulated existence of man, historical writings
have generally taken it for granted. Peace is not celebrated in historical writings. History has
highlighted the disturbance of peace and the waging of war. The result is that it is violence that
catches the eye of the historian; it is virulent wars that become topics of discussion in history;
and it is the deeds of heroes that are told and retold in historical records. The historical record
is generally written as the story of the rise and fall of empires, a chronicle of reigns, wars,
battles and military and political revolutions. The essential fact that central to the process of
production and reconstruction of any society are the bonding activities that prevent society to
break apart is lost sight of. These bonding activities underlie the tasks of daily life. And daily
life revolves around raising and feeding families and organising the work of production and of
meeting human needs, interspersed with times of feasting, and celebration of human creativity
in poetry, song, dance and art. It also consists of helping others and being helped by others
in times of need.
If peace nourishes, sustains and enriches life, both personal and social, war destroys life,
 12 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Resolution

impoverishes society and ravishes natural resources. However, the glorification of the warrior
in history has a powerful effect on human psyche and self-image of man. It leads to viewing
the struggle for power as the basic attribute and theme of human existence. Current high levels
of reported local and national inter-ethnic and inter-cultural violence and high levels of military
preparedness for interstate violence on every continent, confirms this view. Yet a closer
inspection of the record of civilisational progress suggests a different basic model of human
existence that underlines the possibility of a nonviolent and peaceful mode of living and
integration with the promise to remove the spectre of violence and war and to clear the way,
if not for Immannel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace”, then, certainly for durable and salubrious peace.
This model is that of a peaceful society which relies on peaceful methods of conflict resolution
for preventing conflicts from becoming violent. Thus peace is at the heart of this model and
in the hearts of the people as well. This is corroborated by the fact that the desire for peace
is not only sine qua non of everyday life but also a universal aspiration. In the writings of
secular and religious nature, the hope is expressed of a paradise, a bahishta, a swarga where
peace prevails eternally and rivers of milk and honey flow perennially. Moreover, humankind
has now reached a stage in which elimination of violence, especially massive violence, both
for the humankind itself at times of war and for nature for supplying the needs of development,
has become imperative. The stark alternative to peace is the impending extinction because of
availability of destructive weapons. Since isolation is a practical impossibility, the problem of
developing a violence-free society has become global.
Aims and Objectives
This Unit would enable you to understand
 Definitions of peace and their distinctiveness
 The need for peace for developing a violence-free society
 The need of maintaining peace at the individual, societal and state level
 The means appropriate for sustaining peace.

1.2 DEFINING PEACE

Before a precise and definite definition of peace is attempted, it is necessary to clarify certain
issues that prevent a clear understanding of what peace really is. Up until hundred years ago,
peace as a subject of theoretical discussion was almost nonexistent. Peace was simply treated
as a condition that followed the cessation of wars. Peace as an autonomous subject, not as
an appendage of war, does not have a very long career. As Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)
makes it clear, the subordination of peace to the main subject of war, at least in international
law, was the main trend. When peace emerged as an autonomous subject and as an object
of theory generating contemplation about a hundred years ago, certain other difficulties clouded
its clear understanding, two of which need to be identified here.
There is no agreed upon definition of what ‘peace’ in reality means. This is evident from the
fact that, broadly speaking, peace has been defined in two different ways: One, to equate
peace with the absence of non-peace. Definitions of peace in terms of a condition opposite
of war are 6what Rapoport calls “definitions by exclusion”. 1For example, peace has been
viewed as “respite from war”, quiet from suits or disorder,’ 2rest from commotion”, etc. The
range of definitions associated with the word “peace” does not give us any precise idea of
what peace practically means. The question as to what kind of situation or social condition
What is Peace? 13

can qualify for peace remains unanswered. The definitions inform us as to what peace has
meant at various times or places to the people and what different scholars or compilers intend
peace to mean. Peace is a value loaded term; people see different things at different places
and times in the word ‘peace’.
Two, in contrast to negative, descriptive definitions, there are positive definitions which posit
a particular condition to be qualified by the term ‘peace’. Positive definitions seek to remove
the deficiencies that negative definitions of peace suffer from. For example, the reference to
the absence or cessation of war concretely means the absence of violence. However, the
absence of violence, as Galtung observes, “should not be confused with absence of conflict:
violence may occur without conflict, and conflict may be solved by means of nonviolent
mechanisms.” 3It is true that positive definitions do emphasise the primacy of peaceful, nonviolent
means of conflict resolution. However, most advocates of peace and nonviolence are not clear
about the goal which is envisaged to be realised through peaceful means.
The emphasis on peace and nonviolence does not, in a majority of cases, indicate what final
condition or objective peace and nonviolence are to realise. Different schools of thought and
groups of activists visualise different conditions that, for them, would signify peace. For
example, pacifism, an important stream of philosophical thinking and a strong social movement,
envisages the penultimate goal as the purging of the human psyche of aggressiveness, as
rejection of violence by human individuals as means to whatever ends. Thus the end of the
rejection of violence remains unspecified. In contradiction to this, peace advocacy emphasises
organised action that is assumed to promote condition that would prove conducive to peace.
These may range from massive demonstrations against threat of war or actual war to deterrence
by massive armament.
The second difficulty relates to the question of perpetual or abiding peace. Supposing that
violence has been banished and peace prevails. Does not this mean the freezing of a particular
kind of status quo for eternity? But is not such a peace conducive to oppression and tyranny?
To make a particular kind of status quo permanent is to block change at its source; the
continuity of the same condition day after day assumes the status of a sacred value and
becomes the paramount duty of everyone to defend status quo. The preference for a stable
society rules out change; however, change is as important an attribute of man’s existence as
stability. Moreover, the very stability may create conditions which are favourable and good for
some and unfavourable and bad for others. Such a situation is the seed-bed of conflict
signaling the need to introduce necessary change.
If this signal is ignored, the way is paved for the explosion of violence. It is necessary not only
to recognise the need for stability but also allow for the possibility of change. Unless this is
done, peace becomes oppressive and may lead to the possibility of violence and war. Peace
has been made into an absolute, a significant factor for its own sake. It is true that excessive
flux is harmful. But it does not mean that it must be eliminated, ruled out forever. Rather,
instead of being completely ruled out, one should aim at controlling it and regulating it. If peace
is made an absolute, it will inevitably plunge mankind into the tyranny of war. The aim should
be creative peace, peace that allows the process of shifting balance in movement. Thus peace
is not a static thing; it is a supreme example of balance in movement. It is a dynamic thing.

1.3 TYPES AND LEVELS OF PEACE

If conflict cannot be ruled out even when violence and war have ceased to be an operative
strategy, then undisturbed, continued peace depends on the degree to which the propensity
 14 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Resolution

to use nonviolence for resolving conflict has taken firm roots. It is quite possible that this
propensity may exhibit gradations; it may be nonexistent or may exist only weakly or may have
become a firm and unshakable attribute of a social order. And since the social order and
individuals, who form an integral part of it, are interdependent, the question whether any
individual has this propensity fully, only partly or none at all will depend on the nature of the
social order or group of people at any level of collective existence. These two aspects of the
question of peace make it possible for us to examine it from two perspectives: an axis formed
by the relationship between negative and positive peace, on the one hand, and the means used
to resolve conflict, on the other. The other perspective involves the relationship between peace
and levels of collective human existence.
Two different kinds of peace can, following Galtung, be identified here: one, negative peace
and the other positive peace. Negative peace refers to the absence of organised violence
between human groups at any level of collective existence, while positive peace underlines a
pattern of cooperation and integration between major human groups. And since the possibility
of conflict does not rule out the possibility of the use of violence for resolving conflict, the
relationship between conflict and means of its resolution yields four fold classification of
relations between human groups: war, that is organised group violence, negative peace,
where there is no violence but no other form of cooperation either; positive peace, where
there is some cooperation interspersed with the occurrence of violence; and unqualified
peace, where absence of violence is combined with a deeply ingrained pattern of cooperation.
Since the situation of war is not peace, it is of no interest for this discussion.
There are various levels of collective existence at each of which peace becomes necessary for
any society to be qualified as peaceful. At the primary level stands the individual, who is driven
by the need to live in a group not only to assure his survival but also to make his life materially
comfortable and psychologically contented and happy. Groups, however, vary in size and
quality; they range from a nuclear family to the entire world. This variation can be seen to
yield, for our purposes, mainly three levels: the level of human groups, for example, peasants,
dalits, army, etc. and the level of the international system of nations. Galtung talks of the
emerging level of the world state. However, since it is still in the womb of possibility, it does
not concern us here.
Each of these levels can be and usually is afflicted with unrest, tension and not infrequently
conflict and violence. The occurrence of this situation demands action, both ad hoc and
institutionalised, for correcting it and restoring peace. As such, it is necessary to identify both
the reasons why a situation of non-peace comes into being and how this situation can be
satisfactorily amended. At the individual level, if a person is experiencing inner conflict, for
example, between what to do or not to do, 4he may engage in aggressive behaviour with a
view to releasing his tension. Such a conflict is essentially moral and can be induced by both
moral and non-moral, that is, economic, social, etc. factors. But all these factors boil down
to the question of doing or refraining from doing something.
At levels higher than that of the individual, there are two levels where peace should not be
allowed to lapse. The first level consists of major human groups that we know as nations or
nation-states. Every state harbours within its borders a plurality of groups differentiated on the
basis of race, language, religion, socio-economic status, political convictions, regional identity,
etc. Two things need to be noted about these groups. First, any one of the factors mentioned
above can become the basis of group formation. What is important in this connection is the
degree of relevance that each of these factors assumes in a particular sociopolitical situation.
That is why the vantage point from which persons view their environment becomes a crucial
What is Peace? 15

ground for the formation of a group. As such, the ground for the formation of groups is,
therefore, variable because of the situational context making a particular factor quite relevant
for group formation.
Second, diversity is the characteristic of all societies, including the emerging world society.
Diversity, however, is not in itself a factor of major importance in the disturbance of peace.
What makes it important is the politicisation of diversity. And the feeling of being discriminated
against in respect of access to various societal resources causes politicisation of diversity. The
feeling of discrimination is engendered when inequality in the distribution of resources induces
a strong sense of deprivation. Attempts to remove deprivation provoke resistance on the part
of those who are fortunate to have more of wealth, power and prestige than others. This
resistance creates tension and tension tends, in due course, to graduate into conflict and
violence. Thus inequality in the distribution of such societal resources as wealth, power and
prestige is one of the potential factors in the formation of groups leading eventually to the
politicisation of traditional referents of identify formation. When groups form and situations
make them oppose each other, it becomes quite clear that the various groups do not share
anything in common except the fact that they share the same habitat.
The loss of commonality is indicative of the fact that any issue can become politically relevant
because different groups tend to view it from their own differential vantage points. A political
issue can become contentious if a sense of unfairness and injustice pervades the collective
psychology of groups. And a contention of the emergent conflict is delayed or impeded. Such
a contingency strikes both national society and the world system of international relations.
However, what needs to be re-emphasised is that diversity in itself does not pose any threat
to peace; what poses threat to peace is the politicisation of diversity, which is caused by the
strong perception of deprivation by different groups.
In the case of national societies, the disturbance of peace affects in a major way only those
within their boundaries. In the case of the international system of nations, such a situation
affects a large number of people in different parts of the world. In the cases both of national
societies and world system, the root causes are (1) the claims of entitlement either in terms
of conserving what one has or a ‘right’ that is, the claim to something and (2) the ambition
to get more than what one can rightfully claim to be one’s own. As long as inter-personal,
inter-group and international relations are based on the principle of moderating the desire for
obtaining ever more control over societal resources, social life and relations remain peaceful.
But when the limits of moderation are crossed, conflict and violence result. In the Indian
tradition, the eruption of violence is seen to be grounded in the subservience of dharma
(righteousness) and Kshatra (power). Such subservience makes power free of all controls
and, as a result, it becomes self-aggrandising.
Such is the case in modern times because the centrality of the fulfillment of ordinary life needs
concerned with the acquisition of wealth, power and status has pushed spirituality and morality
to the background. As a result, power, which emerges as the primary means of safeguarding
what one has and what one wants to get, comes to the fore. And the meaning of power in
this context is to bend others to one’s own will. We can see the interplay of power in all
societies today. The search for what Mahatma Gandhi calls “bodily welfare” has pitted man
against man, one class against another and one interest against another. The result is widespread
tension, conflict and violence. It is this situation that Alasdair MacIntyre depicts as “civil war
carried on by other means”.5
In the case of the world system, the possibility of occurrence of organised violence is enhanced
by two additional factors. One, states differ widely in size and the endowment of natural and
 16 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Resolution

other resources necessary to generate and consolidate power for assuring security. Their
continued viability depends on the goodwill and diplomatic and strategic considerations of
major powers. And, two, in the anarchic situation of the international relations, self-help
happens to be the most reliable means of survival. Self-help requires building, consolidating
and extending power base through annexation of territories for the augmentation of resources.
These two factors, when combined with the tendency of self-aggrandisement, create a situation
in which military-industrial competition (due partly to build strategic industries for national
security) has been a key driving force in developing the productive powers of the system, as
well as its horrific destructive capacity for total war.
The two great world wars were the result of this situation. The stalemate in force, created by
the development of nuclear weapons, has removed the threat of total war. Yet localised small
wars continue to take place. The breakdown of peace followed by violence anywhere in the
world carries very harmful ramifications for the people. The expansion of economic activities
has brought different countries closer together and inter-linkage between them has become
very dense. Consequently, if something happens in one part of the world, its impact can be
felt in the other parts. Such a situation makes peace very essential.

1.4 MEANS OF CREATING AND SUSTAINING PEACE

Peace is essential for sustaining a normal tenor of life, a life free from tension and conflict. The
disturbance of peace at any level identified above is likely to have a larger impact no matter
where it is broken. If a person loses peace of mind, others in his immediate and mediate
environments are sure to be affected in varying degrees. If a society is disturbed and is in
turmoil, its members are adversely affected in various ways. And when organised violence
erupts at the level of the world, the lives of the people all around the world are adversely
affected in numerous ways. These three levels are differentiated by the scope and the extent
of the impact that the disturbance of peace creates. However, whenever peace is broken, it
is broken because of the failure of the mechanism of reconciliation and compromise that is set
in operation whenever the possibility of conflict becomes visible. Even after the peace has
been broken, attempts are made to quickly restore peace and let the normal life of everyday
run its smooth course.
Given the central importance of peace for human well-being, certain institutionalised mechanisms
for keeping peace and for foreclosing the possibility of its breakdown have been in place in
all societies. These mechanisms have different forms and characteristics depending on the level
at which they work. For example, in the case of the individual the most notable institution has
been religion. Traditionally, religion was relied upon to help individuals to achieve and maintain
inner harmony. Every religion underlines the necessity of self-transcendence which can be
facilitated if the individual believes that he must identity himself with an entity, God, some
higher principle, some larger human groups, etc- and acts in different life situations guided by
this belief. Since anything larger than the individual but falling short of the divine entity is
discriminatory and divisive, loaded with the possibility of conflict, every religion stresses some
divine entity as the focus of man’s identity, truth, meaning and value.
Belief in some divine entity induces a nurturant attitude towards fellowmen and nature; helps
in the installation of certain social institutions endowed with the authority to judge and control
individual motivation and behaviour and regulate interpersonal and inter-group relations. Religion
is something from which springs forth “a cluster of identities, attitudes, values, beliefs and
institutional patterns that lead people to live nurturantly with one another and the earth itself
without the aid of structured power differentials, to deal creatively with their differences and
What is Peace? 17

share their resources”. 6However, with the ascendance of modernity the role of religion in
man’s life has considerably declined with the result that psychoanalysis is now increasingly
seen to be an effective instrument of reducing, even eliminating, aggression as the source of
conflict. Thus the psychologist’s couch has replaced, to a very large extent, the place of
worship.
The primary role of religion is to forge a compliance system that is reflective of and represents
the normative aspect of a social order. Normative compliance system means simply that there
is an internalised desire to comply; behaviour that is institutionally necessary is internalised as
a need disposition in the personal system. However, the normative system proves ineffective
in many situations. Therefore, it becomes necessary to supplement and / or reinforce it at the
societal level by legal and political means. Legal measures involve coercion, while political
measures represent certain principles legitimising certain practices for settling differences arising
out of claims and counterclaims that involve certain entitlements. Even while the law aims at
outlawing violence as a means of settling differences, its end result is coercion which is taken
recourse to with the hope that it will educate people in right conduct.
Even political institutional means of ensuring compliance with the proper course of conduct,
involve threat of coercion by a centralised political authority. In contradistinction to normative
and coercive means, there is social control, which is said to be non-coercive. This method is
trade or contract. Trade or contract is supposed to be an effective means of achieving
integration of people and places and, as integration progresses, peaceful relations among the
people concerned are supposed to prevail. Social control based on trade is relatively free
from internal violence, either overt or structural. Contractual relations are based on quid pro
quo and it is profitable to comply with the terms of the contract. As a matter of fact,
contractual relations are supposed to cultivate the virtues of honesty, tolerance and modesty,
virtues that are the fountainhead of non -violence.
These methods of securing compliance pertain largely to a society. At the level higher than the
national political unit, the methods of maintaining peace involve four major institutional
mechanisms. These mechanisms concern relations between nation-states and are supposed to
promote peaceful relations among them. These mechanisms are balance of power, hegemony,
disarmament, and some kind of world organisation. Balance of power takes its inspiration
from the natural science principle of equilibrium. It signifies “…..stability within a system
composed of a number of autonomous forces. Whenever the equilibrium is disturbed either
by an outside force or by a change in one or other elements comprising the system, the system
shows a tendency to reestablish either the original or a new equilibrium”.7
The equilibrium is maintained by the efforts of the states to mobilise power resources to an
extent that are enough to deter other states from disturbing peace. This can be done either
singly by a major power by enhancing its capacity to resist aggression and mount invasion or
by different small or weak states through alliance. Contrary to this is hegemony which symbolises
concentration of power in one nation or an alliance. Such terms as Pax Romana or Pax
Britannica reflect a conjecture that peace can be kept by amassing power by one state or
a combination of states. The assumption is that it will not only deter other states from attacking
other countries but also that the hegemonic power will be able to penalise the aggressor. The
possibility of punitive action, it is hoped, will help keep peace. Another method of preventing
the disturbance of peace is disarmament. It is based on the assumption that if there are no
lethal weapons, there is no possibility of violence, at least, organised violence. This sentiment
is best expressed in the Bible, Isaiah 2:4, which says: “And they shall beat their swords into
ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks…..” With respect to international relations,
 18 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Resolution

serious efforts are made to achieve disarmament, especially in view of the development of
highly destructive weapons capable of achieving total destruction.

1.5 PEACE FOR WHAT AND HOW?

As indicated earlier, absence of violence should not be constructed as the absence of conflict.
Nor does the commitment to save the mankind from the scourge of war promises to banish
violence with regard to resolving conflicts. Even if the scourge of war is successfully removed,
violence may be resorted to as long as the root cause behind the propensity to use violent
means for conflict resolution persists. As the preamble to the UNESCO Charter declares,
“Since war begins in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace
must be constructed”. But then, the question, “how the defenses of peace can be constructed
in the minds of men?” must be squarely faced. Obviously, the foundation of such defences can
be none else than inner harmony which is realised when the phenomenon of aggression, of the
propensity to use violence, is rooted out of man’s interior.
This raises the question whether inner harmony can provide the firm basis for banishing war
between nations. Galtung replies in the negative. He argues that “Wars between nations take
place at the international level; this level is sui generis and requires analysis and reform at
that level.”8 According to him, to make inner harmony as the basis of peace at the world
system of international relations is a confusion of levels. However, one could observe that had
aggression been becalmed and neutralised in the minds of Hitler and Mussolini and others of
their ilk, wars would not have taken place. But Galtung is right in pointing out to the crucial
importance of conditions obtaining in man’s environment for preserving and sustaining peace.
Thus it is necessary to ask: What are these conditions that must prevail to allow peace a
chance? But, then, we have to answer the final question in this connection: What end is peace
to serve? It does not need any proof for the argument that peace is essentially a condition for
man to enjoy the fruits of a good life. But, then, what is meant by good life?
It is this last question that forces us to see the need of the prevalence of compatibility between
man’s interior and the external world as well as the crucial linkage between different levels of
man’s world. It also makes it necessary to link the question of what is good life to Sorokin’s
distinction between two types of cultural modes of living. The distinction that he makes
between ideational / idealistic and sensate / materialistic types of culture has a great bearing
on answering this question: What is peace? The basic difference between these two types of
culture lies in the source from which a person derives the standard of his living. This standard
can be derived from the nature of man himself or from a transhuman source that transcends
the limitations of contingent human experience.
If the standard is derived from man’s nature itself, then, man turns out to be simply a body-
mind complex. It is then the appetites of the body, that is, desires and their satisfaction that
determines the mode of man’s existence. In the process of satisfying these desires man
becomes externalised; this signifies that his material interest replaces man’s inner-being and he
becomes the reflexive creature of external, largely material, objects which attract or repel him.
He develops an instrumental perspective on the external world and treats it as one of potential
means with a view to control. The need to control the external world makes power the central
drive in life. With this, social life and relations are characterised by competition and the
tendency of man to profit, as Rousseau puts it, by the misfortune of his neighbours. Pervasive
competition to get ahead of others in the struggle of life breeds aggression in the minds of men
and violence becomes one of the means of getting what one wants.
What is Peace? 19

In contradistinction to this, the ideational / idealistic type of culture derives the standard of
man’s living from a transcendental source. This source, usually, the divine entity, engenders a
belief system or cosmology from which are derived specific conceptions that are held and
shared by the members of a society, both implicitly and explicitly, about the nature of humans,
the world here and now, the world beyond, and the God and spirituality. Since all men are
considered to be the children of God, there develops an attitude of respect towards others
as well as the awareness of recognising and safeguarding their integrity. This is instrumental in
building a strong linkage between individual and community interests; high identification with
the community induces individuals and groups to give equal preferences to their own as well
as the community interest. This induces a preference for joint problem solving; this, in turn,
leads to the development of institutional devices for resolving conflicts through non-violent
means. Thus there is an emphasis on the need of the restoration of social harmony and conflict
avoidance. Through the process of enculturation, this cluster of beliefs and practices is passed
on to future generations. As a result, the ethos of this culture is to suppress aggression and
minimise the incidence of violence. That peaceful societies do even now exist is supported by
anthropological studies.9
Trust and natural respect along with the respect of the right of others are some of the
characteristics of a person who eschews non-violent means of resolving conflicts that arise due
to differences in views. Such persons are the pillars of peace. By the same token, avoidance
of violence and the recourse to institutionalised mechanisms of conflict resolution based on
non-violence ensures peace as balance in movement. As such, conditions that sustain peace
as balance in movement must constitute the necessary elements of a good life. These conditions
of good life rely more on internal discipline than on external controls. And different measures
used to sustain peace at different levels of human world fail to keep peace because they rely
more, even exclusively, on external control.

1.6 SUMMARY
Peace is essential for individual well-being and is recognised as an integral part of normal
social life and relations. With loss of peace, man’s equanimity is adversely affected, and clouds
the man’s capacity to cope with life’s problems as well as his social relations spreading in him
a sense of insecurity. Peace is an essential condition for both the individual’s personal life and
social relations. Historical writings have focussed less on peace and more on war and recorded
the events of the rise and fall of empires, a chronicle of reigns, wars, battles and military and
political revolutions. Peace is necessary to nourish, sustain and enrich life, both personal and
social. This Unit has dealt with a comprehensive meaning, types and conditions for peace to
prevail and sustain it as well. Trust and the respect of the right of others are some of the
characteristics a person should develop to eschew the non-violent means of resolving conflicts
that arise due to differences in views. Such people and the non-violent methods ensure the
continuance of peace.

1.7 TERMINAL QUESTIONS

1. The situation of non-war can be characterised as peace. Comment.
2. What are the different ways in which peace has been defined? Elucidate the merits and
demerits of different definitions.
3. What are the different means employed to keep peace at different levels of human world?
4. What is the meaning of peace as balance in movement and how can this be ensured?
 20 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Resolution

SUGGESTED READINGS
Bernstein, E., et al, Peace Resource Book, Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, M.A.,
1986.
Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict, Academics Press, San Diego, 1992, 3 volumes.
Fry, D.P, and K Bjorkqvist., (eds), Cultural Variation in Conflict Resolution: Alternative to
Violence, Mah wah, N.J. Erlbanm, 1997.
Galtung, Johan., “Peace”, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Macmillan and
the Free Press, New York, 1968.
Kant, Immanuel., Perpetune Peace: A Philosophical Essay, Swan Sonne, London, 1902.
UNESCO, From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace, UNESCO, Paris, 1996.