Debates on peace and conflict: diverse perspectives practice questions.

According to Johan Galtung, 'positive peace' is best understood as

• the absence of direct physical violence between actors
• social justice and structures that tackle the root causes of conflict
• a ceasefire guaranteed by international peacekeepers
• a stable balance of power that deters rival states from attacking each other

Answer: social justice and structures that tackle the root causes of conflict

Positive peace goes beyond the mere absence of fighting (negative peace) to include justice, equality and institutions that remove the underlying causes of violence.

A situation in which people's life chances are systematically harmed by unequal social and economic structures, rather than by an identifiable attacker, illustrates Galtung's concept of

• direct violence
• cultural violence
• structural violence
• criminal violence

Answer: structural violence

Structural violence is harm built into institutions and social arrangements, such as avoidable deaths from poverty or discrimination, with no single actor pulling a trigger.

Which of the following is a criterion of jus ad bellum in just war theory?

• discrimination between combatants and civilians
• humane treatment of prisoners of war
• proportionality of force used in each individual battle
• declaration of war by a legitimate authority

Answer: declaration of war by a legitimate authority

Jus ad bellum concerns when going to war is justified (just cause, legitimate authority, last resort, right intention), whereas the other options are jus in bello rules about conduct during war.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P), endorsed at the 2005 UN World Summit, holds that

• powerful states may intervene anywhere at any time to promote democracy
• sovereignty entails protecting a population from mass atrocities; the international community may act if the state manifestly fails
• the UN Security Council is legally obliged to deploy armed peacekeeping forces whenever any civil war breaks out anywhere in the world
• former colonial powers bear a special legal obligation to protect their former colonies

Answer: sovereignty entails protecting a population from mass atrocities; the international community may act if the state manifestly fails

R2P reframes sovereignty as responsibility: it covers genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, with international action, authorised through the UN, only when the state fails to protect its own people.

The democratic peace thesis claims that

• established democracies almost never go to war with one another
• democracies never go to war at all
• democracy can only be established after a peace agreement has been signed
• authoritarian states are incapable of remaining at peace with their neighbours

Answer: established democracies almost never go to war with one another

The thesis is dyadic: democracies do fight wars, but they very rarely fight each other, which liberals attribute to shared norms and institutional constraints on leaders.

A feminist perspective on peace and conflict would most strongly emphasise

• the primacy of military deterrence in preventing war
• state survival as the only goal that matters under conditions of anarchy
• gendered impacts of war and women's inclusion in peace processes
• the role of free trade in eliminating all conflict

Answer: gendered impacts of war and women's inclusion in peace processes

Feminist scholars highlight how war affects men and women differently (e.g. sexual violence as a weapon of war) and argue that peace agreements are more durable when women participate, as recognised in UNSC Resolution 1325.