The time is right for strategic peacebuilding
From the Director:
Monumental news during the 2008–09 academic year ranged from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the election of the first African-American President of the United States. But the issue that rose to the top was the burgeoning global economic crisis, the disastrous effects of which continue to be felt as we head into the latter part of 2009.
Consider the downturn’s implications for violent conflict around the world. New fiscal constraints on wealthier nations impair international campaigns to reduce poverty, fight disease, and alleviate the conditions that fuel conflict. Governments are limited in their ability to address environmental crises and prevent resource wars. Mass unemployment and human suffering present new openings for tyrants and dictators. Violent ethnic and religious extremists find ways to exploit the failures of the financial institutions and political systems they have long derided. People everywhere feel victimized by the corruption, greed, and mismanagement that the crisis has brought into the open.
Clearly, peace scholarship and education are vital. Seldom has the need been so pressing for a comprehensive peace studies institute—one that investigates critical issues across the spectrum of concerns, educates strategic peacebuilders, and empowers policymakers and practitioners to implement new solutions. And never before has strategic peacebuilding, the Kroc Institute’s signature approach to conceptualizing and building a sustainable and just peace, been so relevant.
Integrating local and global
Strategic peacebuilders create and nurture constructive long-term relationships between local people and communities (such as peasant organizations, refugees, women’s collectives, religious groups, labor unions), on the one hand, and transnational and global policymakers and powerbrokers (such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union, governments), on the other. They seek to understand and exploit the increasing interdependence of actors on the world stage. To discern the connections among authoritarian regimes, stunted economic development, and religious extremism, for example, peace scholars must also consider the broader contexts of such conflictgenerating dynamics. They ask: how might the policies and practices of the European Union, the United States, the World Bank, the United Nations, and nongovernmental organizations contribute solutions to the conflict? (Or, how did such policies cause or exacerbate the conflict?) Kroc’s growing interdisciplinary faculty is increasingly able to undertake this kind of multidimensional scholarship.
During the year, we worked with renewed intensity to develop the Kroc Institute’s capacity as a preeminent peace research center. A top priority has been the growth and consolidation of our peace studies faculty as one that embodies the vision of our founders and “patron saints,” the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of Notre Dame, and the late philanthropist Joan B. Kroc.
The appointment of Emad Shahin, an Egyptian political scientist, as Luce Associate Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding, gives the Kroc Institute no fewer than eight experts in the related areas of religion and conflict, ethics of war and peace, and faith-based peacebuilding. With this critical mass of faculty in place, we are developing a series of cross-disciplinary, international research efforts that will make Kroc’s program in religion, conflict, and peace the world’s leader in an increasingly relevant area of study.
New faculty members are carefully recruited so that overlapping and mutually reinforcing intellectual interests and moral commitments lay the foundation for truly strategic peacebuilding. Kroc’s newest faculty member, the anthropologist Catherine Bolten, is a case in point. An Africanist who earned her doctorate from the University of Michigan, Catherine specializes in the cultural and moral dimensions of development and social reconstruction after war or violent conflict. She has worked intensively in Sierra Leone, seeking to understand the psychological and social dynamics of people struggling to survive and preserve their dignity during sustained violence and war. Much of her work is directly relevant to the United Nations, nongovernmental organizations, policymakers, and others charged with helping to rebuild war-torn societies.
Interdisciplinary strength
Professor Bolten will find conversation and collaboration partners not only among Kroc’s religionists, but also with our researchers trained in other disciplines, including new faculty members Christian Davenport, a political scientist whose extensive research interests range from genocide in central Africa to post-war justice in Northern Ireland, and Mary Ellen O’Connell, Notre Dame’s Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law, who, as Kroc’s Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution, strengthens our expertise in ethics, human rights, and Catholic social teaching.
Few conflicts today can be understood without the full range of perspectives—the anthropologist’s insights into “local knowledge,” the political scientist’s analysis of regime dynamics, the legal scholar’s understanding of international law, or the religionist’s sensitivity to what is held sacred by combatants or peacemakers. Moreover, all of these experts must work together to produce a reliable diagnosis, the prelude to any compelling policy prescription.
A desire to increase the influence of peace research on policy is the reason David Cortright, a longtime Kroc research fellow, accepted my offer to become the new director of policy Scott Appleby 2008–09 The Year in Review studies. David is a scholar and prolific writer, a consultant to the United Nations and various governments, and a longtime advocate and teacher of nonviolence. Starting his term with unsurpassed energy, he has already planned a major conference on nuclear nonproliferation to be held in Helsinki, Finland, in October 2009. His appointment allows Jerry Powers, who so ably coordinates the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, to focus fully on his new role as director of Catholic peacebuilding studies while continuing to facilitate the network’s growth and strength.
Plan for the future
The dramatic recent growth in the number and quality of Notre Dame scholar-practitioners dedicated to strategic peacebuilding makes possible the Kroc Institute’s ambitious new strategic plan, approved this year by Provost Thomas G. Burish and endorsed by the Kroc Institute Advisory Council. The plan sets forth the steps needed to achieve three overarching and interrelated goals over the next five years.
The first goal is to establish the Kroc Institute as a leader in research on the causes of contemporary conflicts and the means of preventing, resolving, and transforming conflict in pursuit of a sustainable peace. Several externally funded research projects under way are designed to produce influential publications, public conferences, and policy recommendations.
The second goal is to re-imagine Kroc’s master’s program in light of Kroc’s new doctoral program in peace studies. These two graduate programs will complement and strengthen each other, preparing students for professional careers in conflict resolution, policymaking, and organizational leadership (the master’s program) and for a lifetime of scholarly research, teaching, and peacebuilding practice (the Ph.D. program).
The third goal is to advance the field of peace studies and influence the larger world, especially by helping create and develop peace studies programs at other universities and by demonstrating the relevance of peace scholarship to national and international debates on matters ranging from nuclear nonproliferation to postwar reconstruction to the mitigation of religious and ethnic violence.
Each of these goals will be amplified by communications strategies designed to enlarge the circle of strategic peacebuilders and expand Kroc’s reach among scholars, policymakers, peacebuilders, alumni, and students. Watch for an online journal dedicated to peace policy, a website that illuminates strategic peacebuilding, and new media projects that draw attention to peace research and publications, student learning and education, and the achievements of our alumni peacebuilders worldwide.
During a year of change and crisis, strategic peacebuilding gained momentum, thanks to the many people who supported and accompanied Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute, directly or in spirit. We are deeply grateful to you and to all those who work to build a more just and peaceful world.
Scott Appleby Professor of History John M. Regan Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute
