On Galtung’s Approach to Peace Studies

Abstract

Peace studies and research are fascinating because they delve into some of the quintessential questions concerning human relations, behavior, cooperation, and conflict. So how should we define peace at this point? Is a state-centered approach sufficient to explain peace independently, or should we include societies and individuals? The common tradition is to construct peace based on the concepts of conflict and violence, to produce norms and principles. In other words, the phenomenon of peace is conceived and discussed as a necessity. In this case, the question of “peace for and with whom” arises. Political science and the discipline of international relations are also insufficient to explain this debate. From this point of view, this study aimed to examine the general perspective of the pioneer theorist of peace studies, Johan Galtung, who combines theory and practice as much as possible and tries to define peace with the social realm processes with his unique thought infrastructure.

Keywords

• galtung
• peace studies
• negative-positive peace
• conflict transformation
• galtung
• barış çalışmaları
• negatif-pozitif barış
• çatışma dönüşümü