Peace Research Today: What, Why and Who?

Notes for Remarks by Alyson J.K. Bailes, Director, SIPRI

TAPRI 35^th Anniversary Seminar, Tampere, 3 May 2006

What?

‘Peace research’ has always been a vocation and a cause as well as a science, with correspondingly wide scope for judgement on what its content should be.

In the pioneer days Johan Galtung’s approach at PRIO was more conceptual and philosophical, SIPRI’s more econometric and deductive. (The exact formula used by SIPRI’s first Governing Board in its first report presented to the Swedish MFA was that ‘the institute should study problems in a pragmatic way and that it should select questions which are important to the decision makers in current international politics’.) Since then, specific subjects covered at PRIO, SIPRI, TAPRI and elsewhere have ranged from weapons to religions, from institutional politics to social and gender dynamics, from development theory to the protection of the environment—and much more. The area focus has been anything from a conflict-ridden province or a country to a region or the entire globe.

This makes it hard to paint any simple picture of how the focus of peace studies has changed up to the present, and will change or should change further. It seems most likely that each institute (or group of scholars elsewhere) has updated its own particular sub-agenda or subject portfolio in response to objective changes in environment or demand, but also for (legitimate) subjective reasons including the composition of leadership and staff, expectations of local sponsors, nature of key partnerships, and of course the realities of funding. As we know, it is adventitious factors like this —rather than the inherent logic and merits of earlier work—that have brought some of the most dramatic variations in peace researchers’ experience including in some cases the end of an independent institute.

From SIPRI’s viewpoint the key changes in the defining environment might be summed up as:

• end of Cold War: shift from European to global focus, from prevention of war to corrective engagement in conflict and hence from ‘threats’ arising in the Northern hemisphere to ‘challenges’ in the South

• shift from restraint to action, zero-sum to non-zero sum, and ‘separation’ to ‘interpenetration’ models; growing belief in ‘good’ uses of armaments and forces, or rather that the user and intention rather than the object makes it good or bad. This also explains the shift in focus from disarmamentàproliferation and sharpens the question of whether a peace institute ought to ‘go with the flow’ in this respect or stand out against it;

• 9/11 shift to transnational, mainly non-military threats, linked with paradox of excessive use of military force to try to resolve them; then rise of ‘even newer’ human security threats—disasters, diseases, climate change (and the alternative human security definition that links with rights/democracy): general tendency of all this to highlight cross-sectoral aspects both of threats and of remedies (business, civil society)

• (as result of all of this) shift in institutional focus from roles of purely military groupings (NATO, WP) to ‘multi-functional’ ones: UN and its agencies, G8, OSCE, EU, other regional initiatives and even the security-relevant actions of bodies like the WTO and OECD.

SIPRI’s own choices have been: not to abandon our longstanding ‘hard core’ data-based projects (because of their uniqueness, the resources invested, and their importance for our global credibility); not to pretend to know things we don’t, like terrorism studies as such; but to try to ‘graft on’ new dimensions in each traditional area of work—hence e.g.

• military expenditure research à SSR and general development/security challenges, resources for broader security sector;

• conflict studiesà link with terrorism dynamics, complex peacebuilding including role of local and private actors;

• WMDà new approaches to export and technology controls, destruction programmes, ‘package’ approaches to individual challenges;

• Euro-Atlantic security à role of EU across security spectrum, cross-sectoral alliances, ‘regionalism’ in other areas and as part of the global scene.

Why do peace research (and what is the desired result)?

In Cold War times this was a relatively easy question to answer:

• find the facts objectively (if necessary resulting in a judgement of ‘a plague on both your houses’)

• tell them in a free, frank and accessible way, to motivate changes for the better and to put tools in hands of those working for such change.

We were perhaps under less pressure to judge who were ‘bad guys’ when it was so obvious what were the ‘bad things’; and we didn’t always have to go so far in proactive and operational engagement, when the facts themselves had such mobilizing force. In SIPRI’s case, a typical mode in the early years was for us to present scientific and technical information and objective analysis to governmental experts such as those working to prepare the great international-legal instruments of the time (BTWC, test ban treaties etc), and the impact of such independent data and ideas on the real-world diplomatic outcome is attested time and time again. Our Yearbook and other publications also became a tool for smaller states and delegations to take an informed stand on strategic issues that for too long had been monopolized by larger powers with access to their own analytical resources.

This last point also brings out, however, that the special/unique character of our work used to be more obvious—there were few if any alternative sources, and the focuses of other non-peace institutes were generally quite different (eg studying defence in positive way, or non-military foreign affairs, or purely historical analysis) .

Today: I have already suggested it isn’t so easy to see, or to prove, what the ‘bad things’ are, but other changes include:

• Many more sources/purveyors of info (NB also problems of over-information in our own work)

• ‘Peace’ agenda more prone to intermingle with other fields of security and governance (or indeed, with other intellectual disciplines like political philosophy, social anthropology, ethics and law etc), just as boundaries of ‘arms control’ are getting harder to distinguish in operational sphere

• No longer clear what buttons (if any) to press to get strong public reactions to facts alone; traditional armament/disarmament issues (even nukes) don’t always seem to do the trick; ‘scare’ dossiers like those published by some other institutes on Iran pose other problems of purpose and impartiality; and it is correspondingly hard to get money for ‘pure’ research (fact-finding and publication)

• Hence more pressing and complex choices on how far to ‘get involved’ as advisers, educators, practitioners, promoters, and across a much wider field of potential interactions and partnerships.

SIPRI’s choices: in the near term we are definitely and consciously increasing the proportion of our hands-on consultancy and advice work, but still in an essentially ‘technocratic’ mode (even if normatively guided) rather than NGO-style advocacy: cf. African budgets work, arms exports transparency and control, WMD advice especially for EU, ‘second track’ work with Iran, advice to EU Presidencies and organs also on active aspects of ESDP, outreach to institutes/conceptual leaders in ‘rising powers’. Is this mutually reinforcing with, or dangerous for, our reputation for scientific non-partisan analysis? Can the same staff have time, and combine the aptitudes, to do both?? (NB the balance must be even harder to keep for institutes that are more dependent on ad hoc funding)

Who (who does peace research, and who do we do it with and for?)

‘Who does it’ by no means so clear; indeed have to hope it is not only done by formal ‘peace’ institutes or the whole enterprise would be in a bad way! (Though NB some new creations e.g. S. Korea, Argentina, and at provincial level in Flanders and Catalunya). Complexities can be shown just be looking at the armaments field: only ‘peace’ institutes pay much attention any more to nuclear and major conventional disarmament (and not all of them do any longer), but every ‘security’ institute and some IR ones get in on proliferation issues; new campaigning NGOs on humanitarian arms issues (SAS, Mine Action); BICC on disposal/conversion, etc. Range of ‘suppliers’ widens further as you get into wider security issues, notably conflict studies, but also SSR (DCAF), PSCs (economy- and globalization-oriented groups), ESDP (European studies buffs), etc. etc. We are seeing simultaneous trends of greater diffusion and overlapping of fields of study, combined with more networking and coalition-building among institutes (and still to a lesser extent, universities). (Perhaps one merit is that this lessens the risk of our becoming ‘self-referential’ as SIPRI was sometimes called in the past!)

This is perhaps the feature that most often leads to the question whether ‘purely’ peace institutes are still needed and what their distinguishing feature is. Much harder to answer that question nowadays in agenda terms. So what is it: a special quality of approach and intention, of guiding norms, even of internal ethos and behaviour?? We have already seen how hard that is to define, and different institutes will probably put the emphasis and balance in different places.

All this may not matter if we know who we are serving, speaking to and acting upon and if it is clear that we are getting through to them and they see us as useful and necessary. But this is not easy to define and be confident about, either. At SIPRI, we sometimes feel we are being stretched in several directions at once:

• shifting back from one, or few, regional focuses to the fully global level

• shifting from policy advice work with a relatively small group of institutional staffs and ‘states of good will’ to a much larger range of democracies and even non-democracies who appear ready to listen to us (or at least, where some elements listen)

• shifting from nations as actors to mutilateral and transnational constituencies (including good ‘non-traditional actors’ whom we may inform and inspire to action)

• as already noted, shifting from governmental and inter-governmental elites to private sector ones, and to different kinds of civil-society ones from just the traditional pro-peace NGOs (NB for instance much wider scope/need for work with parliaments)

• more, and more diverse, demands and possibilities for work with media; more options/technical demands for use of new IT methods (websites, joint data-bases, virtual networks etc).

In each case, ‘stretch’ problem comes from fact that we can’t give up old partners/methods while working with new ones. Upshot is series of difficult choices to make or, at least, priorities to set.

Finally, come back to issue quite relevant to TAPRI: how far does ‘charity begin at home’? No accident that remaining peace institutes are clustered in Norden and Germany, they clearly have some relevance to distinctive local political/social/cultural needs. How far should we be ‘of’ our host country and ‘for’ our host country? What does it mean when a new peace institute is ‘of’ just one sub-national province, what is the implied agenda there?? Is there any contradiction in being national and being peaceful? This is a real issue even for SIPRI which was set up to be international/independent and always scrupulously respected as such by the Swedish authorities. My own choice has been to get more involved with the local Swedish/Nordic scene, admittedly for reasons of personal interest: but also because I see some need for better debate and transparency especially over adaptation to new and sometimes alien security agendas; for intellectual networking across Norden (and between Norden and other partners) to offset a certain ‘stove-piping’ of official policies; for input through these usually well-meaning countries to EU, NATO, OSCE and UN debates, and so forth. Is it a good choice, have we kept the right balance, will my successor want to keep up the same line? Our Board and our other staff would probably be divided on the answer and I am not sure I know it myself. But I do know I have enjoyed trying out the formula, and - above all - the many good opportunities it has given to work with all the Nordic colleagues represented here today.

Let me close with the warmest congratulations to TAPRI on carrying the torch of peace research through these 35 years, despite all the challenges and adventures I’ve spoken of, and for spreading the light of that torch to so many others including our own Institute. All best wishes for the future too, from myself, from Sweden, from SIPRI and all our staff!