Meditations in an Emergency: Social Scientists and the Problem of Conflict in Cold War America by Marie Elizabeth Burks B.A. Harvard University, 2006 Submitted to the Program in Science, Technology, and Society in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 2017 2017 Marie Elizabeth Burks. All Rights Reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of Author: Signature redacted History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society July 24, 2017 Certified by: Signature redacted--- - th~stopher Capozzola Associate Professor of History Signature redacted Thesis Supervisor Certified by: MASSACHUSE'TS I David Kaiser OF TECHNOLGY Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science Professor of Physics 2017 ' OCT 3 Thesis Committee Member LIBRARIES ARCHIVES Signature redacted Certified by: - Jennifer S. Light Professor of Science, Technology, and Society Professor of Urban Studies and Planning Thesis Committee Member Signature redacted Accepted by: - v ? Harriet Ritvo Arthur J. Conner Professor of History Director of Graduate Studies, History, Anthropology, and STS _Signature redacted Accepted by: Jennifer S. Light Professor of Science, Technology, and Society Professor of Urban Studies and Planning Department Head, Program in Science, Technology, & Society Meditations in an Emergency: Social Scientists and the Problem of Conflict in Cold War America by Marie Elizabeth Burks Submitted to the Program in Science, Technology, and Society on September 1, 2017 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society ABSTRACT Through the mode of conceptual history, this dissertation examines some of the forms dissent could take within academic social science in the United States from roughly 1945-1970. The concept in question is "conflict." There are many stories one could tell about this concept and its transformations in postwar American social science, but in this dissertation I focus on one in particular: how certain social scientists sought to frame conflict as a problem of knowledge, by stretching the concept to fit the global proportions of the bipolar world that seemed to have emerged from World War II, and then using that conceptualization to oppose the Cold War. The dissertation first considers a specific moment of conceptual change, when some social scientists sought to redefine "conflict" in the immediate aftermath of World War II, so that it would be capacious enough to describe conflict at all levels of analysis, from the intrapersonal to the international. From there, it follows a cadre of social scientists who used that novel conceptualization to build an intellectual movement around a new journal and research center starting in the mid- 1950s. The scholars who participated in that movement, known as "peace research" or ''conflict resolution,'" endeavored to construct a "general theory of conflict," which they would then employ to challenge the notion that the Cold War was inevitable. The language of midcentury social science was the idiom in which they expressed their dissent. Although this was to become an international movement, this dissertation focuses on its American incarnation, which came to fruition at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor beginning around 1957. The dissertation then looks closely at how two of the leading theorists of that movement modeled conflict in the early 1960s, and considers the ethical and political impulses that animated their work, demonstrating that it was possible for some intellectuals to inhabit the dual role of academic social scientist and social critic in the early 1960s. It concludes with a brief set of reflections on the United States Institute of Peace, an independent federal institute established in 1984 to embody the dream of "conflict resolution." Thesis Supervisor: Christopher Capozzola Title: Associate Professor of History 3 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 7 Introduction Cold Warriorsand Critics 10 Chapter 1 Conflict PerSe: Transformationsof a Concept 38 Chapter 2 The Peacemongers:Peace Research and the Origins of "Conflict Resolution" 74 Chapter 3 Addicted to Theory, Devoted to Peace: Anatol Rapoport and Kenneth Boulding on Conflict 185 Epilogue Peace Building 185 Bibliography 194 5 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I had always imagined that the experience of completing a dissertation would be one of profound relief. What I felt most profoundly when I was done, however, was not relief, but gratitude. And while I can't possibly convey the depths of that gratitude here, I will try to sketch its contours. First, I thank my committee members. Chris Capozzola inspired me to work harder than I ever thought I could. He asked me tough questions; I'm still trying to answer them. It was fun reading novels together. Dave Kaiser sharpened my thinking about the history of science, and Jen Light's critical insights helped me shape this project. It was my great good fortune to be Anne McCants's TA for three years in a row. Anne has been a generous mentor and friend, and she practically made a medievalist out of me. It was a pleasure and an honor to teach for Sherry Turkle as well. I learned so much just by watching her lead seminar discussions week after week, and she has been encouraging and supportive of me and my work ever since. Jeff Ravel has been a giving teacher and mentor from the start, and thanks to him I had a reason to spend a summer in Paris. Steve Ostrow never came to class without his signature enthusiasm and good humor, even in the dead of winter. It was good to think with Stefan Helmreich about social theory, and with Susan Silbey about "conflict," sociologically speaking. I thank Debbie Douglas, David Mindell, Hiromu Nagahara, Heather Paxson, Linda Rabieh, Harriet Ritvo, Natasha Dow Schull, Craig Wilder, Roz Williams, and Elizabeth Wood for demonstrating their interest, in various meaningful ways, in my growth as a scholar over the years. And I thank Leo Marx for The Machine in the Garden, my original inspiration. I am deeply indebted to Karen Gardner for making sure I achieved all my milestones. Thanks also to Paree Pinkney and Carolyn Carlson for making things run so smoothly. Margo Collett, Mabel Chin Sorett, and Meghan Pepin made it a delight to be in the History Department headquarters; I always looked forward to tea. I am grateful to my fellow HASTS students for being excellent colleagues and friends. Amah Edoh helps me be my best self. Shreeharsh Kelkar and Canay Ozden-Schilling were my constant companions, even when we were thousands of miles apart. I thank Rende Marie Blackburn for sharing her cats with me; Ashawari Chaudhuri for her warmth; Amy Johnson for being a good buddy; Clare Kim for being there in a pinch; Lan Li for her boundless creativity; Xi Lin for cheering me on; Teasel Muir-Harmony for kindly connecting me; Lucas MUller for cultivating my appreciation for the arts; Shira Shmu'ely for her wit and grace; Ellan Spero for talks over tea and homemade biscuits; Michaela Thompson for attuning my ear to the song of the hermit thrush; and Ben Wilson for the chats. Marc Aidinoff, Lulsa Reis Castro, Nadia Christidi, Ellie Immerman, Lauren Kapsalakis, Grace Kim, Rijul Kochhar, Nicole Labruto, Alison Laurence, Crystal Lee, Jia Hui Lee, Lisa Messeri, Burcu Mutlu, Peter Oviatt, Tom Ozden-Schilling, Rebecca Perry, Beth Semel, Ryan Shapiro, David Singerman, Elena Sobrino, Alma Steingart, Mitali 7 Thakor, Nate Deshmukh Towery, and Emily Wanderer have all helped make the basement of E51 an improbably convivial place over the years. I am fortunate to have found my way, as an undergraduate with an impressionable young mind, to the History of Science Department at Harvard. Anne Harrington's brilliant lectures made me want to be a historian of science. For teaching me how to do that, I thank Peter Buck, Jimena Canales, Peter Galison, Jean-Frangois Gauvin, Dainiel Marg6scy, Sharrona Pearl, Alisha Rankin, Steven Shapin, and David Spanagel. Outside of that department, I thank Vincent Brown too for taking me seriously as an aspiring historian. In my later years of graduate school, the History of Science Department invited me back as a Teaching Fellow, which gave me invaluable experience and allowed me to support myself while I continued to work on this dissertation. Special thanks to Allie Belser. This dissertation really began to crystallize in Ann Arbor, where I spent the fall of 2014 as a visitor in the History Department at the University of Michigan. I thank Gabrielle Hecht for making that possible, and Howard Brick, Joy Rohde, Perrin Selcer, and Paul Edwards for thought-provoking conversations. Kathryne Bevilacqua was my first friend in Ann Arbor, and Glenna MacDonald offered me a home away from home. I am grateful to Michael Gordin, Daniel Horowitz, Andrew Jewett, Rebecca Lemov, Jessica Wang, and Nadine Weidman for challenging me to think about the history of the social sciences in new ways. I thank Ellen Stroud for making sure I didn't miss my bus, and Allan Needell and Laura Dummit for graciously opening their home to me so that I could go about my research at the Library of Congress. Dedicated archivists at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, the Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State, the Institute Archives and Special Collections at MIT, Historical and Special Collections at Harvard Law School, Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University, the Library of Congress, and the Special Collections Research Center at George Mason University helped make my research fruitful.