The Civilisation of Conflict: Constructive Pacifism as a Guiding Notion for Conflict Transformation

Abstract

How, and by what means, is peace constituted? In the first two decades of the twentieth century, a leading pacifist, Alfred H. Fried, set this fundamental question at the heart of the pacifist programme. Causal pacifism was the key term: “If we wish to eliminate an effect, we must first remove its cause. And if we wish to set a new and desirable effect in its place, we must substitute the cause with another which is capable of creating the desired effect” (Fried 1918, 10). This sounds abstract in terms of its methodology, but was posed as something quite specific: If war is the outcome of international anarchy, which still prevails in relations between states, this anarchy itself must be abolished in order to remove its effect, which is war. Moreover, in place of anarchy, a ‘social order’ must be established whose effect is to allow conflicts in general to be managed in a nonviolent reliable manner. In other words — in the political sense of the term — peace is created.