Read this new article by Mariam Salehi and Thorsten Bonacker published in "Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen"

Bonacker, Thorsten; Salehi, Mariam (2024): Frieden als Prozess. In: ZIB 31 (1), S. 107–119. DOI: 10.5771/0946-7165-2024-1-107.

Abstract:

In peace and conflict research, processual understandings function as alternatives to too narrow and too broad concepts of peace. Instead of understanding peace as a substantial condition, for example defined by the absence of violence or the realization of social justice, processual understandings focus on change from war to peace. However, it often remains unclear what it actually means to understand peace as a process. In this contribution, we aim to work out the theoretical value of a processual understanding of peace. We therefore look at processual understandings of change and at how peace as a process can be shaped in practice. We argue that peace as a process is more than the reduction of violence as directed change. Peace processes can also go along with a transformation of violence, and not only with its reduction. A processual understanding of peace hence considers unintended consequences and resulting non-linearity of peace.