Tristyn Campbell

Patterns in the Justification of Invasion and Responses to Attack

The previous nine chapters reported on survey findings pertaining to invasion and bombing from Africa, East Asia, the Gulf States, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and the Balkan Peninsula, South and Southeast Asia, the UK/Anglo Region, and Western Europe. The specific items on the Personal and Institutional Rights to Governmental Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS) that were analyzed were as follows: (1) “Sometimes one country has the right to invade another country”; (2) “Your country is indiscriminately bombing a major city in another country, and women and children, the elderly and civilian men are running around bloody and screaming. What would you feel? What would you want to do?”; and (3) “Another country is indiscriminately bombing a major city in your country, and women and children, the elderly, and civilian men are running around bloody and screaming. What would you feel? What would you want to do?” In regard to the first item, participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement on a 7-point rating scale and then to indicate in their own words their rationale for the rating they provided. The second item called for qualitative responses to the two open-ended questions. This chapter summarizes patterns in the responses across the regions in regard to these items.

Middle East Perspectives on the Achievability of Peace

This chapter focuses on Middle Eastern perspectives regarding the achievability of world peace. The Middle Eastern region, although rife with national and transnational conflict, has undertaken many peacebuilding efforts, such as the Madrid-Oslo process, as outlined in this chapter. This chapter also briefly discusses conflicts in this area that have hampered peace. A sample of 398 respondents from Middle Eastern countries responded to two survey questions regarding the achievability of world peace. Responses were coded for agency, disengagement, and humanitarian engagement, as well as prerequisites for peace. Despite living in an area that has been conflict laden for thousands of years, respondents to the survey were largely optimistic regarding the achievability of world peace, offering many solutions they believed could bring about peace. Perhaps not surprisingly, there was also considerable recognition that war, hate, and violence are barriers to the achievement of peace. This chapter ends by discussing the region’s future in relation to the recent Arab Spring, mentioning important steps necessary to achieve peace and factors that must be taken into consideration in peace efforts.

Perspectives on Protest: Introduction

This chapter describes the methods used for coding participants’ responses to two items on the Personal and Institutional Rights to Governmental Aggression and Peace Survey: “Individuals have the right to stage protests against war and in favor of peace” and “police are beating peaceful anti-war demonstrators. What would you want to do?” First, this chapter provides a brief overview of laws concerning the right to protest. Next, the process of creating the protest manual is described, along with the coding manual itself. This chapter concludes with an explanation of how the responses were analyzed and an overview of the subsequent chapters’ structure.

Perspectives on Achieving Peace: Introduction

This chapter describes the methods used for coding participants’ responses to two items on the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey: (a) “I believe world peace can be achieved” and (b) “The best way to achieve world peace is….” First, this chapter describes the two different research approaches used to develop the manual. Next, Albert Bandura’s theory of moral disengagement is explained. We then explain the two systems of the achieving peace coding manual in detail. This chapter concludes with an explanation of how the responses were analyzed and an overview of the subsequent chapters’ structure.

Definitions of Peace and Reconciliation in Latin America

This chapter begins by defining negative and positive peace (Galtung, J. (1964). An editorial. Journal of Peace Research, 1, 1–4, Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6, 167–191). It then examines the components of a culture of peace (United Nations (1999, October 6). Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly: Declaration on a culture of peace. Fifty-third session (agenda item 31): A/RES/53/243. Retrieved on 9 March 2012, from http://cpnn-world.org/resA-53-243A.html). Next, it defines reconciliation, including passive and active coexistence (Galtung, J. (2001). After violence, reconstruction, reconciliation, and resolution: Coping with visible and invisible effects of war and violence. In M. Abu-Nimer (Ed.), Reconciliation, justice and coexistence: Theory & practice (pp. 3–23). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.), and reviews truth commissions and human rights trials in Latin America (Sikkink, K., & Walling, C. B. (2007). The impact of human rights trials in Latin America. Journal of Peace Research, 44, 427–445). The second half of the chapter presents the results of our study with 713 Latin American participants. We found several significant gender differences in the definitions of peace and reconciliation. Recommendations for future studies are discussed.

International Perspectives on Engagement and Disengagement in Support and Suppression of Antiwar Protests

The research summarized here provides encouraging evidence that the right to protest against war is a widely accepted global norm. Very few of the participants in the seven regions of the world that were studied explicitly disagreed with that right. Active agreement with that right ranged from close to eight in ten in East Asia and Russia and the Balkans, to around nine in ten in South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the UK/Anglo region and was highest in Western Europe and Latin America. The right to protest was justified most widely by the national laws that protect that right in most regions, although study participants in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and East Asia tended to offer the justification that protest is a universal human right. Another theme frequently expressed in agreement with the right to protest was the moral responsibility to act, particularly by men in the Middle East and persons who had taken part in antiwar protests in Russia and the Balkans. The suppression of antiwar protests was widely condemned, and most study participants stated that they would actively oppose the beating of protestors, e.g., by asking the government to protect them and by calling the suppressive acts to the attention of mass media. The lowest level of active opposition to the use of violence to suppress antiwar protests was expressed in Africa, where study participants cited helplessness as a justification for their lack of engagement. Generally, support for the right to protest and opposition to the suppression of protest were greater among women than men. Overall this research shows that antiwar protests are strongly supported worldwide, both as a legal and human right and, particularly among those who engage in protest, as a moral responsibility.

Achieving Peace: An Integration

Beginning with a discussion of ideological framing in peace and conflict studies and international relations, this chapter presents alternative frameworks for examining discourse in international ethics, compares results from its implementation in eight regions on peace-related items on the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS), and discusses their possible normative implications. The introductory section considers historical and contemporary obstacles to peace and prescriptive and critical reactions. We sketch the contours of a practical pacifism through which social psychological peace research can give both international law and global public opinion their due. Applying agentic and grounded theory approaches influenced by Johan Galtung’s conception of positive peace and sociocognitive psychologist Albert Bandura’s theory of moral engagement, we demonstrate how surveying international attitudes toward peace is one way of making the descriptive medium the prescriptive message.

Gulf States’ Perspectives on Invasion

Within the extended Middle Eastern area, the Gulf States, often referred to as the Persian Gulf or the Arab Gulf, have helped nourish Middle Eastern civilizations for thousands of years (Potter 2009). The Islamic countries currently established on the shores of the gulf have come to be known as the “Gulf countries” or the “Gulf region.” Its eastern coast consists of the following countries listed from south to north: Sultanate of Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. The western coast of the region belongs solely to Iran. Iraq, which controls a little bay area entry at the top of the gulf, is not considered a Gulf country. In addition to a common border, these nations share a predominantly Islamic heritage, the Arabic language, similar tribal cultures and traditions, and some Christian and Jewish minority communities. This chapter focuses on perspectives on invasion in a group of these Arab League nations.

Views on National Security in the Middle East

Unlike much of the rest of the world, government policy toward national security in the Middle East has generally been determined by decisions made by countries outside of the region. The Middle East, a term sometimes considered “Eurocentric” (Adelson 1995; Koppes 1976), is used to designate a region of countries at the intersection of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The region includes between 20 and 40 countries, including at least the following: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordon, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen (see www.mideastweb.org for more information). The countries comprise a diverse mosaic of languages, traditions, and histories and are difficult to characterize as a group.

Perspectives on Invasion in Russia and the Balkans

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on December10, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations (United Nations Department of Public Information 2007) eloquently describes rights to which all people are entitled. These include, among others, a right to education; a right to social security and a standard of living adequate for health and well-being; freedom from slavery; freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention, exile, torture, degrading treatment, or punishment; freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy, home, family, and correspondence; and freedom of movement within and between countries. Article 28 states that “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.”