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Purpose: Since the middle of the 20th century, much of the literature on conflict resolution has focused on ways to manage and diffuse conflicts, but there have been recent efforts to include peacebuilding and sustaining processes in these studies. The discussions on peace have, inevitably, raised questions about the definition of violence: there are dissenting ideas about the boundary between violence and peace. Traditionally, the literature on violence focuses on ethnic conflicts, wars, terrorism, and the results of such armed conflicts. This chapter illustrates other “debates” about violence and peace, by focusing on the discourse and explicit activism “in the field.”

Method: The chapter draws on archival sources for examples of protests, discursive politics, and human rights activism.

Findings: The chapter highlights, the ways in which more conventional ideas about violence, and the boundaries between peace and violence have been challenged. It focuses on women's and women-dominated activism to highlight the role of actors whose explicit and unobtrusive actions are not systematically recognized as we study efforts to build and sustain peace.

This paper explores selected interdisciplinary literature on peace. It examines the notion of peace from several perspectives. First, it compares some theoretical discussions on peace, contrasting Tagore and Gandhi with the contemporary writings of Amrtya Sen and Lederach. Second, it examines notions of peace proposed by women's groups. Third, it examines notions of peace emanating from the efforts taken after prolonged conflicts, such as Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and humanitarian efforts. Fourth, it looks at peace through art. This paper compares the contributions of these approaches toward developing a multilevel, holistic concept of building and sustaining peace.

This chapter presents research and analysis on the Institute for Economics and Peace’s (IEP’s) index in the Ecological Threat Report (ETR). In the analysis, 178 countries are examined at the sub-national level, accounting for 99.9% of the global population. The estimate consists of five indicators that aggregate to yield an index of ecological threats. These five indicators are water risk, the prevalence of stunting, the impact of natural disasters, projected population growth and projected temperature rise. The ETR is a tool that can be used to identify the countries that are at the highest risk of ecological threats. The index identifies that 30 countries facing the highest level of ecological threats as well as low levels of resilience are home to 1.26 billion people. At the end of 2020, in these 30 countries, 68% of the total people were forcibly displaced beyond their borders. As these 30 countries suffer collectively from the highest ecological threats and without the reversal of ecological degradation, displacement is very likely to continue. Without urgent development, ecological threats will continue to create humanitarian emergencies and will likely increase without a sustained effort to reverse the current trend.

The main thesis of the chapter is to introduce a new idea to the field of peace negotiations, which will require the development of a new model of negotiations to enforce peace. The existing models of peace negotiations highlight the existence of a positive peace dividend to parties involved in conflicts and peace negotiation. They, hence, usually highlight a gradual and dynamic adjustment, or movement, away from a conflict-ridden outcome towards a peaceful outcome that offers a positive peace dividend to all relevant stakeholders. In comparison with the status quo, peace brings additional economic returns and peace therefore offers a win–win situation. Despite the fact that a win–win situation does not ensure the enforcement of peace, as agents can easily get locked into what is commonly known as the prisoners' dilemma – yet the possibility of Pareto improvement makes negotiations for peace somewhat artificial. At least in the short run all agents involved in active conflicts are apprehensive of peace as they expect immediate (expected) returns from making peace can outweigh the expected returns from conflicts. An important work that sidesteps the win–win situation of peace dividends is by Isard and Azis (1999) who introduced the possibility of an immediate loss of economic returns from the peace process in their conflict management procedure (CMP). However, in the existing work on CMP, the long-run returns from peace outweigh that from conflicts. One therefore presumes that peace brings economic benefits to all. The existing CMPs therefore assume away any possibility of lower economic returns from peace. There are some important models in which peace negotiations are also modelled as a zero-sum game in which the gain of a party represents a loss to others, which is known as win–lose negotiations. In this work we introduce the possibility of bargaining and negotiations against the backdrop of potential immediate losses while peace is favoured simply for its intrinsic value and not for pecuniary returns. In the real world, there is evidence to believe that agents involved in conflicts are painfully aware of two things: first, the decision-making agents who choose between conflicts vis-à-vis peace are the leaders who get rarely affected by economic returns from conflicts or peace. It is usually the foot soldiers who bear the brunt of costly conflicts and can benefit from peace. Secondly, most people value peace for the sake of it as peace has an intrinsic value that ensures the protection of rights and their lives and protection from violence. Thus, peace is a collective good that provides little extra economic returns to actual decision-makers who choose between courses of conflicts or peace.

The gendered consequences of war are often not fully realized, as women tend to carry the heavier burdens in post-conflict situations, yet at the same time can be left out of the formal peace process. Women can be part of the peace process informally through economic empowerment and sustainability. As most post-conflict situations are occurring in the developing world, one of the major issues in the peace process is the notion of a rescue narrative. Organizations from the developed world approach peacebuilding as a project that often disenfranchises and disempowers the people they are trying to help. Therefore, women must be empowered to contribute to their economic situations rather than becoming dependent on the help of outsiders. This amplifies the role of the follower by giving her the tools to be part of the solution and become self-sustainable.

This chapter argues for the role of social enterprise in building sustainable peace by giving women agency and power in their communities. It will look at these phenomena through the lens of a non-governmental organization, 31 Bits, that offers a valuable case study in the post-conflict Northern Uganda town of Gulu where they employ 100 plus women in a five-year program that equips them to become fully self-sustainable through the creation of jewelry handmade from recycled paper. Their holistic approach moves beyond the nonprofit model of charity and survival for giving their beneficiaries the chance to thrive. In this way, it is not relief or rescue work but rather informal sustainable peace development. When women are economically empowered, their communities are closer to reaching gender equality and achieving positive peace.

Peace on Earth has often been elusive, with more times on Earth spent at war rather than peace. This paper examines the nature of peace with its antithesis of war, focussing on the impact of war on the planet, which is not a primary consideration when war is waged. War leaves negative planetary legacies, which are of major concerns in times of population growth whilst living on a finite planet. Who should be responsible for planetary impact of war is considered, with some focus on government and other organisations. Collaborative strategies for caring for the planet through guidelines and level of departments of defence and national law-making organisations at national levels are discussed, as well as overviewing the focus and role of the United Nations and the associated Sustainability Goals. The paper concludes by suggesting that a more powerful way to influence us in our responsibilities to live peacefully, rather than a virtuous ‘should not’ approach, is the need to shift back to a moral positioning in our perspectives as humans being part of the ecosystem, so that we view ourselves as being at one with all life. In this perspective, if we incur harm to this planet, we are harming ourselves. Suggestions for living in a more peaceful way are drawn from indigenous wisdom and spiritual teachers, particularly the current Pope Francis.

Civil society in Sri Lanka has, to a large extent, been shaped by British colonial rule and the establishment of the modern, democratic state in the first half of the 20th century. In pre-colonial times, grass roots communities organised around the need for collective work in temples and for irrigation. A notion of pre-colonial cooperation and harmony and an ideal traditional Buddhist society, which was lost due to colonialism and modernisation and should be revived, today forms part of the Sinhalese nationalist discourse and of the mobilisation rationale of the large community development organisation Sarvodaya (see Gombrich & Obeysekere, 1988; Brow, 1990).

In many countries over the world, women have waged peace to challenge systemic oppressions and build societies that are reflective of women’s voices, and in fact, all voices. Moved by the desire for change, and often even willing to put themselves at risk, these women have paved the way for societal change focused on peace, justice, and freedom. With the assistance of narratives from the Women’s PeaceMakers program at the University of San Diego (San Diego, California), we can come to know some of these women and understand their stories. This chapter shares the findings from a pilot study that helps to understand the work of these Women PeaceMakers through the lens of the Integral Perspective of Peace Leadership (McIntyre Miller & Green, 2015). It also offers recommendations for others engaging in the leadership and followership work of creating, sustaining, and actualizing a movement with particular attention paid to the modern United States-based Me Too and Time’s Up™ movements.

The chapter details the creation of a Peace Fellows program for students at a New York university, supported by community and university institutions, as well as activist professors, to nurture young people to learn about and take action on peace and social justice issues. The program resulted in an Institute for Peace Studies, a Minor in Peace and Conflict Studies, a Peace Action Matters club, and alumni who hold positions as peace organizers.

Conflict resolution and peace building has acquired much significance in the last few years (Siddiqi, 2003).