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In the past three decades there has been spectacular development in the area of Peace Studies and Peace Science. Peace Studies that takes a more descriptive and case-oriented approach is becoming more quantitative. Peace Science has a theoretical and mathematical orientation. However, in those fields, governance of the political, social, and economic organizations has not been given adequate emphasis. Peace depends on the nature of political and administrative structure of a country. It is often said that democratic countries do not fight. Ethnic crisis and civil war in Africa and elsewhere are very much related to lack of institutions, leadership, decentralization of decision making, gender discrimination, abuse of human justice, and so on.

The elimination of economic impediments and dismantling of trade restrictions have increasingly become a common feature in the economic integration across nations in the world. Many countries in several regions in the world have increased their intra-flows of goods and also inputs. The Arab region has experienced an increase in their labour flows, in particular during the period of oil boom. Consequently, the remittances among the Arab countries registered a steady increase; especially remittances from the Arab Gulf countries (Gulf cooperation council region). Using the panel data fixed effects estimation, the study investigates the relationship between remittances and economic integration in the Arab region covering the period 1983–2003. Despite the rising tide in intra-Arab labour flows, we argue, the harmonisation of economic policies and the removal of further obstacles to intra-labour flows are necessary to give a further fillip to economic integration in the Arab world. Moreover, our work shows that a reduction of the gap between per capita gross domestic products of the Arab countries is important for enhancing Arab economic integration.

Seifudein Adem is research associate professor of Political Science in Binghamton University, New York, NY, USA, and President-Emeritus of the New York State African Studies Association. Before coming to the United States, Dr. Adem taught Political Science in the University of Tsukuba (Japan) and Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia). Seifudein Adem is the author of, among other books, Japan: A Model and a Partner (Brill, 2006).

When violent conflicts erupt, there is almost always a fairly obvious proximal cause – a border has been crossed, an edict has been issued, a critical asset has been seized, and a political leader has been assassinated or has refused to yield to a powerful rival. Yet beneath this obvious cause, there are deeper, less obvious issues, underlying causes that have led to the buildup of discontent and the subsequent explosion of violence. It is certainly important to develop mechanisms and processes for short-circuiting the proximal causes of violent conflict. But in the long run, it is even more important to understand and address the underlying reasons that determine whether or not the conflicts that inevitably arise in a species as contentious as ours erupt into violence. For that allows us to develop ways of changing the context surrounding conflicts to create a world in which the eruptions of mass organized violence that we call war become more and more rare.