Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Scholarly research on peace has overwhelmingly focused on negative peace, or the absence of conflict, aggression, violence, and war. We seek to understand holistic peace systems, the political, economic, and social systems that sustain peaceful societies. We show how two methods can help us understand the properties and dynamics of such complex peace systems. Each method provides insights from different perspectives to help understand sustaining peace. The causal loop diagram helps us to identify the peace factors and the connections between them. The mathematical model helps us determine the quantitative results of the interactions between all the peace factors. Using these methods, we found that there is no single “leverage” factor that is the lynchpin in creating sustainable peace. Rather, the small effects of a large number of positive peace factors that support peace can collectively overcome the stronger emotional response to the negative conflict factors that jeopardize peace.

Keywords

peace studies positive peace sustaining peace causal loop diagrams mathematical modeling social psychology methodology

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alon

(2007). An introduction to systems biology: Design principles of biological circuits. New York, NY: Chapman & Hall/CRC.

Asan

S. S.

Asan

(2007). Qualitative cross-impact analysis with time consideration. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 74, 627-644.

Barabási

A.-L.

(2016). Network science. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Burns

(2007). Systemic action research. Bristol, England: Policy Press.

Coleman

P. T.

(2011). The five percent: Finding solutions to seemingly impossible conflicts. New York, NY: PublicAffairs.

Coleman

P. T.

Deutsch

(Eds.). (2012). Psychological components of sustainable peace. New York, NY: Springer.

Coleman

P. T.

Donahue

Fisher

Fisher-Yoshida

Fry

D. P.

Liebovitch

L. S.

Vandenbroeck

(2017). Attracted to peace: Visualizing the attractor dynamics of sustainable peace societies. Unpublished working paper.

Diehl

P. F.

(2016). Exploring peace: Looking beyond war and negative peace. International Studies Quarterly, 60, 1-10, doi:10.1093/isq/sqw005.

Donahue

Rucki

Coleman

P. T.

Fisher

(2017). Mapping sustainable peace in the Basque Country: A ground-truthing pilot of the Sustainable Peace Project (Report). New York, NY: Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity.

10.

Fernandez-Rosales

I. Y.

Liebovitch

L. S.

Guzman-Vargas

(2015, April 30). The dynamic consequences of cooperation and competition in small-world networks. PLoS ONE. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0126234

11.

Fisher

Redding

Straw

Mazzaro

(2015). The contribution of reconciliation and victim memory to sustainable peace in Colombia: A dynamics systems analysis (Project Report for World Bank Group Contract P156805). New York, NY: AC4, The Earth Institute.

12.

Forrester

J. W.

(2013). Industrial dynamics (Reprint of 1961 1st ed.). Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books.

13.

Freiberger

(2014, May 8). Chaos on the billiard table. Plus Magazine. Retrieved from https://plus.maths.org/content/chaos-billiard-table

14.

Fry

D. P.

(2005). The human potential for peace: An anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

15.

Garud

Simpson

Langley

Tsouka

(Eds.). (2015). The emergence of novelty in organizations. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

16.

Gleick

(2008). Chaos: Making a new science (Anniversary Reprint ed.). New York, NY: Penguin Books.

17.

Goertz

Diehl

P. F.

Balas

(2016). The puzzle of peace: The evolution of peace in the international system. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

18.

Goldstein

J. S.

Freeman

J. R.

(1990). Three-way street: Strategic reciprocity in world politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

19.

Gottman

J. M.

Murray

J. D.

Swanson

C. C.

Tyson

Swanson

K. R.

(2002). The mathematics of marriage: Nonlinear models. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

20.

Holland

J. H.

(1999). Emergence: From chaos to order. New York, NY: Basic Books.

21.

Institute for Economics & Peace. (2018, October). Positive Peace Report 2018: Analysing the factors that sustain peace, Sydney. Retrieved from http://visionofhumanity.org/reports

22.

Jervis

(1997). System effects: Complexity in political and social life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

23.

Kelso

J. A. S.

(1995). Dynamic patterns: The self-organization of brain and behavior. Cambridge: MIT Press.

24.

Kopelman

(1988). Fractal reaction kinetics. Science, 241, 1620-1626.

25.

Kyong

Coleman

P. T.

Fisher-Yoshida

Fisher

Fry

D. P.

Liebovitch

L. S.

. . . Vandenbroeck

(2015). Realizing sustainable peace: Expert survey report. New York, NY: Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity.

26.

Liebovitch

L. S.

(2018). “PeaceMath” repository. Retrieved from https://github.com/LarryLiebovitch/PeaceMath.git

27.

Liebovitch

L. S.

Naudot

Vallacher

R. R.

Nowak

Bui-Wrzosinska

Coleman

P. T.

(2008). Dynamics of two-actor cooperation-competition conflict models. Physica A, 387, 6360-6378.

28.

Liebovitch

L. S.

Peluso

P. R.

Norman

M. D.

Gottman

J. M.

(2011). Mathematical model of the dynamics of psychotherapy. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 5, 265-275.

29.

Linsay

P. S.

(1981). Period doubling and chaotic behavior in a driven anharmonic oscillator. Physical Review E, 47, 1349-1352.

30.

Mahmoud

Makoond

(2017, April 8). Sustaining peace: What does it mean in practice? New York, NY: International Peace Institute.

31.

Meadows

(1999, December). Leverage points: Places to intervene in a system. Hartland, VT: Sustainability Institute. Retrieved from http://donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Leverage_Points.pdf

32.

Nazarko

Ejdys

Halicka

Nazarko

Kononiu

(2017). Application of structural analysis to classification of technology development drivers. Procedia Engineering, 182, 474-481.

33.

Newman

(2010). Networks: An introduction. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

34.

Novak

J. D.

(2009). Learning, creating, and using knowledge: Concept maps as facilitative tools in schools and corporations (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

35.

Peluso

P. R.

Liebovitch

L. S.

Gottman

J. M.

(2012). A mathematical model of psychotherapy: An investigation using dynamic non-linear equations to model the therapeutic relationship. Psychotherapy Research, 22, 40-55.

36.

Redding

N. S.

(2016). Leadership complexity while navigating a complex conflict: Linking individual attributes with dynamic decision-making processes (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). New York, NY: Columbia University. Retrieved from Academic Commons: https://doi.org/10.7916/D8MP536B

37.

Scensei and the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4), the Earth Institute, Columbia University. (2015). Gure Esku Dago and the right to decide: Viewpoints, challenges, and ways forward. Unpublished report.

38.

Schuster

H. G.

(1988). Deterministic chaos: An introduction (2nd Rev. ed.). New York, NY: VCH.

39.

Strawinska-Zanko

Liebovitch

L. S.

(2018). Introduction to the mathematical modeling of social relationships. In Strawinska-Zanko

Liebovitch

L. S.

(Eds.), Mathematical modeling of social relationships (pp. 1-16). New York, NY: Springer.

40.

Strogatz

S. H.

(1994). Nonlinear dynamics and chaos. New York, NY: Westview Press.

41.

Suedfeld

(2010). The cognitive processing of politics and politicians: Archival studies of conceptual and integrative complexity. Journal of Personality, 78, 1669-1702.

42.

Sweeny

L. B.

Meadows

(2010). The systems thinking playbook: Exercises to stretch and build learning and systems thinking capabilities. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green.

43.

Tetlock

P. E.

(2005). Expert political judgment: How good is it? How can we know? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

44.

Vallacher

R. R.

Coleman

P. T.

Nowak

Bui-Wrzosinska

Liebovitch

L. S.

Kugler

Bartoli

(2013). Attracted to conflict: Dynamic foundations of destructive social relationships. New York, NY: Springer.

45.

Vandenbroeck

Goossens

Clemens

(2007). Foresight, tackling obesities: Future choices–Building the obesity system map. London, England: Government Office for Science.

46.

Wright

(1986). Evolution: Selected papers. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.

Approaches to Understanding Sustainable Peace: Qualitative Causal Loop Diagrams and Quantitative Mathematical Models

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References