Institute's History
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1 History of the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies By Ian Harris, Dick Ringler, Kent Shifferd, and William Skelton The Wisconsin Institute for the Study of the future League of Nations that were War, Peace, and Global Cooperation, designed to outlaw war. now the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, began in the early Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 1980s, a period of considerable peace including those in the peace movement, activity in the United States.1 Most were early advocates for peace specifically, in response to the education. Peace societies came breakdown of arms control talks and together at world peace conventions, the saber rattling by President Ronald first of which took place in The Hague, Reagan, a worldwide peace movement Netherlands, on May 18, 1899, a day had emerged, focusing on the thereafter commemorated as peace day proliferation of nuclear weapons and and celebrated on campuses and the heightened tensions of the Cold schools throughout the United States. War. In addition, U.S. involvement in In Wisconsin, there was considerable Central America had spawned various resistance to the First World War by the “cells” of nonviolent activists across the German settlers who did not want the United States who demonstrated United States to enter into war against against military oppression in Latin their “fatherland.” Much of the America and sent peace delegations to opposition also came from socialists countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, opposed to fighting “a rich man‟s war.” and Nicaragua. In a broader historical After World War I, peace activists and context, however, the formation of the educators promoted “education for Wisconsin Institute also reflected trends international understanding,” whose in the fields of peace studies, peace purpose was to humanize different education, and peace research that had cultures around the world so that they developed during the twentieth century. could not be converted to enemies and hence become the focal point for war The Rise of Peace Education and propaganda. This thrust is currently Research seen on campuses and in schools as “international education” or “global Peace education has always had a studies.” reciprocal relationship with peace movements. In the nineteenth century, World War II created new interest in a most of the impetus to establish variety of peace education known as courses and programs to teach peace on “education for world citizenship” that college and university campuses came was focused on politics practiced by the from concern about the horrors of dominant world powers, the United modern warfare. After the large-scale States and the Soviet Union, that led to slaughter of the American Civil War, the Cold War with its concomitant peace clubs sprang up on various buildup of weapons of mass college and university campuses destruction. The creation of the United throughout North America and Europe. Nations in 1945 spurred new interest in These clubs were often aligned with ways to avoid the scourge of war. In various peace societies that sponsored 1948, the first academic program in national speakers who would travel peace studies began at Manchester from campus to campus denouncing College, a small Brethren college in war and war preparation and promoting North Manchester, Indiana. the establishment of organizations like 2 The field of peace research developed as Boulding, Bert Rolling, Johan Galtung, a “science of peace” in the 1950s to and others, culminated in the first counteract the science of war that had International Peace Research produced so much mass killing. The Association (IPRA) meeting held in first Pugwash Conference was held in Groningen, the Netherlands, in 1965. 1957 in the village of Pugwash, Nova Since that time, IPRA has played a Scotia, Canada, birthplace of the leading role in stimulating the growth of American philanthropist Cyrus Eaton, peace research through its biennial who hosted the meeting. The stimulus conferences and twenty commissions. for that gathering was a Manifesto issued in 1955 by Bertrand Russell and The field of peace research began with Albert Einstein and signed by other the study of wars—why they occur and distinguished academics that called what can be done to stop them. This upon scientists of all political approach to peace became known as persuasions to assemble to discuss the “negative peace,” e.g., stopping some threat posed to civilization by the form of violence. Partly under the advent of thermonuclear weapons. leadership of Johan Galtung, but also Pugwash Conferences bring together through concern for the problems of from around the world influential underdevelopment that plague scholars and public figures concerned countries in the South, peace with reducing the danger of armed researchers in the 1960s began to conflict and seeking cooperative discuss concepts of positive peace that solutions for global problems of war and focused on human rights and justice. peace. This impetus came from Gandhian scholars in India who were concerned In 1959, the Peace Research Institute about peacelessness and the challenges Oslo (PRIO) was founded in Norway of development. Also in the 1960s, under the leadership of Bert Roling. building on the success of Gandhi in Johan Galtung, who has become a overthrowing the yoke of the British leading figure in the field of peace empire in India and the nonviolent research, was active in PRIO, an tactics of the American civil rights organization that publishes two movement inspired by the leadership of academic journals, Journal of Peace Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., scholars Research and Bulletin of Peace began to focus on the use of Proposals, that have helped develop the nonviolence as a creative tool to deal field of peace research. In Britain, the with oppression. Lancaster Peace Research Center, later to become the Richardson Institute, was This expansion of the field of peace also formed in 1959. These early efforts research points to an important laid the foundation of a new academic symbiotic relationship between peace field, peace research, that blossomed movements, peace research, and peace during the 1960s, an era when the studies. The activists lead, developing world was focused on the U.S. war in strategies to oppose violence, whether it Vietnam. be wars between nations, colonial aggression, cultural, domestic, or In 1962, the Women‟s International structural violence. Academics League for Peace and Freedom, which commenting on these developments had its origins during the First World further the field of peace research. The War, set up an International activists, seeking a way to broaden their Consultative Committee on peace message, seek to educate others research that was headed by Elise through peace education. Teachers Boulding, who in 1963 started observing these activities promote peace publishing an International Peace studies courses and programs in Research Newsletter. Her efforts, with schools and colleges to provide support from her husband Kenneth awareness of the challenges of war and 3 peace in their classrooms. Peace colleges and universities in the United researchers seek to promulgate their States had peace studies programs, findings about the success or lack of while many more had courses focusing efficacy of different peace strategies on the problems of war and through peace studies programs. This underdevelopment. Most of the creative recycling of insights into the academic programs were minors or causes of violence and the conditions certificate programs3 created by faculty for peace through the realms of peace responding to student demands to action, research, and education create courses of study that had provides dynamism for peace studies. relevance to their lives. During this decade, the University of Wisconsin- At the end of the decade of the 1960s, Stevens Point established a in a time of world-wide questioning of concentration in peace studies. state policies promoting violence and patriarchal power relations, peace In the 1980s, the decade in which the researchers in the United Sates came Wisconsin Institute was born, peace together to form an organization, the studies saw a huge growth on college Consortium for Peace Research, campuses as a result of growing alarm Education, and Development (COPRED) about the Cold War and the production that brought together scholars and and threatened use of nuclear weapons. activists to discuss and analyze their Concern about the fate of the planet practice. COPRED was the North created new courses and programs American affiliate of the IPRA. COPRED aimed toward promoting global survival. held annual conferences that brought At this same time, international together grassroots activists, teachers, nongovernmental organizations scholars, and researchers.2 It provides reaching out across national boundaries a forum for academics and educators fostered citizen-to-citizen exchanges concerned about wars, ethnic conflicts, (known as “track two” diplomacy), so and human rights to exchange insights the focus of peace studies shifted about efforts to promote peace. In somewhat from state actors to peace 1978, COPRED became an official movements and peace organizations cosponsor of Peace and Change, an that contributed to the dissolution of academic journal started in 1972 by the the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold Conference on Peace Research in War. During this decade, a wide variety History (CPHR, founded in 1964), now of conflict resolution programs