The Geography of Peace Movements

Geographers have not been prominent in studying peace movements. This is not surprising, given the strong foundations of the discipline in warfare and imperialism. To date, the only general geographic survey of peace movements appears to be Brunn’s 1985 study, a catalog of peace organizations and their activities that covered mainly the United States. Other studies by geographers are few and focus on individual antiwar campaigns or disarmament strategies. However, more recently, geographers have made significant contributions to the analysis of the broader theoretical context of peace movements. These works offer spatial conceptualizations of social movement mobilization. A general appraisal of the geographic dimensions of peace movements is still missing. This chapter represents a tentative step in this direction. The examination is conducted in four steps. The first section deals with general characteristics of peace movements. It discusses problems of definition and presents the intellectual and philosophical foundations of peace activities. The second section approaches the geography of peace movements from a historical perspective. It examines the development of organized peace groups from their origins in the nineteenth century to the present. Different scales of the changing geopolitical and societal contexts will frame the discussion. Such a geohistory will allow us to identify and interpret changing intensities of activism. The third section addresses the geography of contemporary peace movements from a conceptual viewpoint. Armed with theoretical concepts from the recent literature on social movements, it examines the places and spaces of mobilization. The 1980s peace movement against nuclear armaments will serve as a case study to illustrate the insights that can be gained from a geographic approach. Finally, I will present the major implications that stem from the geohistorical and conceptual discussions in the conclusion. Peace is more than the absence of war. Though it is traditionally defined as the opposite of war, peace scholars and activists now embrace a notion of peace that includes the conditions necessary to bring about a nonviolent and just society at all levels of human activity. Contemporary peace movements not only seek to abolish the overt violence of war, but also struggle to transform the social structures responsible for death and human suffering.

Landscapes of Drugs and War : Intersections of Political Ecology and Global Conflict

The maxim of the moment and for the new millennium (at least for now) is that “after 9/11 the world changed.” Focused, amplified, and projected by the media, the September 2001 events have echoed with an apparent immensity and a rending of the global geopolitical fabric that merit comparison with Waterloo in June 1815 and Sarajevo in June 1914. In each case, an epoch is said to have ended, the first by conventional battle in concert with peace conventions that ended several decades of global conflict, the latter two with acts of terrorism that precipitated global wars of vastly differing intensities and probable durations. Each of these turning points in global history has, of course, its own character, dynamics, and contexts, which largely transcend the narrower episodes and scenes that constitute the intersections of drugs, war, and peace. Nevertheless, one of the persistent and little-noticed elements in the history and geography of warfare during the past half millennium has been the role played by psychoactive substances. With the exception of the Sino-British Opium Wars (1830s–1840s), drugs as aids or obstacles, let alone causal factors, of war have been largely overlooked. Yet even a cursory overview, as presented here, should establish the contours of a topic that merits in-depth attention. Here we have only the space to point to some key instances and promising case studies. Future researchers may find these useful points of departure. The three pivotal events noted earlier, plus October 1492 as the antecedent and fourth key moment, mark a fivefold periodization that provides a convenient way of framing the differing historical relations between drugs and warfare. Prior to Europe’s transatlantic expansion and the coeval eruption of capitalism across the globe, the varying articulations between drugs and war were largely local, individual, and particular. With the rise of long-distance trade networks structured by mercantile capitalism, prime commodities such as sugar and tropical spices launched European-based empires and provoked wars from the East Indies to the West Indies, as well as points north and south.

Soldiers and Nationalism : The Glory and Transience of a Hard-Won Territorial Identity

Anton von Werner’s Im Etappenquartier vor Paris (In quarters before Paris) is based on a sketch done by the painter during the German military campaign against France in October 1870. German soldiers amuse themselves with songs at the piano in a requisitioned manor house near Paris (Brunoy). Attracted by the music, the French concierge and child appear in the doorway. Some mundane activities to further enhance the atmosphere are in progress: lamps are lighted and a fire is kindled in the fireplace. We even know the song that is performed: Schubert’s “Am Meer” (By the sea), with words by Heinrich Heine. Nothing yet anticipates the disillusioned statement of George Steiner that became characteristic of late-twentieth-century reflection on war and culture: “We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning.” In Werner’s painting, war still seems to be an innocent affair that first of all produces mud-stained boots. These boots and the sphere of fraternization that even encompasses the French housekeeper were meant to evoke the impression of sincerity in German soldiers, according to a German art historian. Ultimately converted into a painting, the picture became really popular when it was sold on the German market as a small tapestry after 1895. As the German writer and critic Ludwig Pietsch wrote at the time, “[Such pictures show] the good-natured and sentimental nature of the national character [. . .] which even in the rough and wild times of war and in the midst of an irreconcilable enemy cannot be denied.” Not surprisingly, the French reading of this picture (once or twice on exhibition in Paris) is somewhat different: “The attitudes of the lumpish soldiers with their blusterous posture, their heavy mud-stained boots, are completely in contrast to the refinement of the furniture. The conquerors behave somewhat like vandals. At the right in the doorway, the maid, on whom an officer seems to have designs, watches the scene accompanied by her daughter, who is hardly able to hide her fear.”

Geography and War, Geographers and Peace

La géographie, ça sert d’abord à faire la guerre—geography serves, first and foremost, to wage war. Yves Lacoste made this bold statement the title of a pamphlet against French academic geography in the mid-1970s. He not only exposed the historical importance of geographical knowledge in the waging of war and, more generally speaking, the controlling of people and territories, he also attacked academic and school geography for concealing its political and strategic importance. Geography (i.e., the mapping of the world out there) indeed has strong connections to rulers and their attempt to control territories and peoples. On the other hand, geographers have in the past two decades been keen to promote geography as peace studies. This chapter examines the ways in which geographers have dealt with war and peace since the establishment of modern Western academic geography. It addresses both the way in which geographers have conceptualized and studied war and peace processes and the way in which geography has been applied and geographers have been implicated in these very processes. The result is an evaluation of whether geography has been converted from a discipline for war into a discipline for peace, to paraphrase O’Loughlin and Heske. This is done by considering three dimensions for which antagonist positions (war minded versus peace minded) are anticipated: the perception of war (a natural event versus an undesirable collective behavior), the focus of geographical studies that deal with war and peace (functions of war versus causes and consequences of war), and the advocated application of geographical knowledge (to win a war versus to prevent a war and to foster peace). War and peace do not seem to belong to the vocabulary of geography. The terms have no entries in the Dictionary of Human Geography or in the Dictionary of Geopolitics. This is mainly because war and peace are rather vague concepts. In this chapter, a limited conception of war has been chosen: political violence between states, that is, armed conflict. Therefore, the review neglects urban riots, social struggles, and related conflicts.

Shifting the Iron Curtain of Kantian Peace : NATO Expansion and the Modern Magyars

As the head of Latvia’s minute military, Colonel Raimanos Graube, notes, the ascension of the Latvian state into NATO is part of a much larger process than military security alone: “This means we are moving to our goal, which is to be a firm and permanent part of the West.” Though such a viewpoint is common among the populaces of ascending member states, it helps raise numerous questions as to several inherent contradictions in the reasoning behind NATO expansion. To begin with, why are numerous states that just over ten years ago regained their sovereign independence from the Soviet empire so suddenly willing to join a new, hegemonic-backed Western empire? Furthermore, what are the true reasons that underlie NATO members’ interest in expanding their military alliance into nation-states with military forces comprised of only 5,500 members (e.g., Latvia)? There is more at play in NATO expansion than simple geopolitical security as defined by the international relations (IR) field. Indeed, it will be argued that above and beyond security for central Europe, contemporary NATO expansion is a moment in the cycle of the U.S. rise to world power. Moreover, it will be illustrated that ascension of central and Eastern European states into NATO may represent the final surrender of the socialist modernity as global competitor to the West. In this historical battlefield between Eastern and Western modernities, the socialist modernity that dominated during much of the region’s twentieth-century history is now reviled by these civil societies and viewed as the antithesis of modernity. In the meantime, the Western lifestyle of mass consumption and suburbanism, as well as other dominant core processes from Western Europe in general, raised the flag of market capitalism and democratic institutions in these states and filled the power vacuum just as quickly as the Soviet red stars came down. In this way, NATO is becoming increasingly synonymous with a “zone of peace” wherein all members ascribe to democracy, free trade, and interdependent relations. By joining NATO, new member states are making a political effort to shed the yoke of the failed Soviet modernity and join the hegemonic-led “Western” world (i.e., become “part of Europe”).

Navigating Uncertain Waters : Geographies of Water and Conflict, Shifting Terms and Debates

The debate over whether or not future water scarcities will contribute to heightened conflict and violent war is far from over. In the past decade, there has been a proliferation of books with titles such as Water Wars: Coming Conflicts in the Middle East, Rivers of Discord: International Water Disputes in the Middle East, and Rivers of Fire: The Conflict over Water in the Middle East, with many more undoubtedly planned or in press. This chapter serves as a critical assessment of some of the major themes of this literature and also contributes several concepts and case study examples in order to shift and reframe some of the common bases and assumptions of ongoing discussions. In particular, the concept of scale is used to argue for a broadened notion of “sociopolitical conflict” associated with water resources to overcome weaknesses inherent to dichotomous state-centered understandings of “war” and “peace.” Given the changing nature of contemporary conflicts, “peace” cannot justifiably be understood as the absence of war. Many people, livelihoods, places, and economies are marked by diffuse and persistent conflict. Whether disruptions take the form of gang warfare in cities, the frequency of preventable deaths caused by lack of access to basic needs, or conflict over access to and sharing of critical resources, times of “peace” are notably marked by political instability, death, vulnerability, and other features commonly associated with warfare. Further, given interconnections between environments, people, and places, conflicts at specific sites cannot be abstracted from situations and conditions at other locations and scales. Even if a state is not at “war,” situations of resource use or access may still be marked in important ways by sociopolitical conflict, either past conflicts or ongoing conflicts across other sites and scales. In short, narrow attention to stateto- state warfare detracts from the complexity of relationships between the changing geographies of water resources and sociopolitical conflicts. A multiscalar perspective that highlights manifold and interrelated geographies of “water and conflict” across historical and geographical scales and among multiple sites and actors brings this into relief.

The Geography of “Resource Wars”

Competition over natural resources has figured prominently among explanations of armed conflicts, from Malthusian fears of population growth and land scarcity to national security interests over resources defined as “strategic” because of their industrial or military use, such as oil and uranium. Access to natural resources and the transformation of nature into tradable commodities are deeply political processes, in which military force can play a role of domination or resistance. Armed separatism within Indonesia and Nigeria, annexation attempts on Kuwait and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, protracted civil wars in Angola and the Philippines, and coups d’état in Iran and Venezuela have all incorporated important resource dimensions. Arguably, the radical Islamic terrorism that has affected the United States since the early 1990s is to some extent an oil-related “blowback”: U.S. military deployment in Saudi Arabia, criticisms against the corruption of the Gulf regimes, and ironically, part of the funding made available to terrorist groups. This chapter examines relations between resources and armed conflicts, with a focus on commodities legally traded on international markets (thereby excluding drugs, as well as water and land involved, for example, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) and on extracted resources such as oil, minerals, and timber, in particular. Beyond a simple reading of so-called resource wars as violent modes of competitive behavior, this chapter argues that resource exploitation and the resource dependence of many producing countries play a role in shaping incentives and opportunities of uneven development, misgovernance, coercive rule, insurrection, and foreign interference. This relationship, however, is not systematic: history, political culture, institutions, and regional neighborhoods, as well as a country’s place in the international economy, all play a part these relations. The incorporation of resources into an armed conflict has also specific implications upon its course through their influence on the motivations, strategies, and capabilities of belligerents. Military targets often consist of commercial business opportunities rather than political targets, while the cost of engaging adversaries may be calculated in terms of financial reward.

Dynamic Metageographies of Terrorism : The Spatial Challenges of Religious Terrorism and the “War on Terrorism”

Smoke pluming from the towers of the World Trade Center and a mushroom cloud resulting from a “bunker-buster” bomb dropped on a presidential palace of Saddam Hussein: the two related images suggest that the geopolitics of the twenty-first century will be very much about the “shock and awe” of terrorism. Terrorism and counter-terrorism are both geopolitical in that they utilize and attempt to change geographic structures for political ends. By examining the geographic components in definitions of terrorism, we can understand how changes in the geographic scope of terrorist activity are useful in explaining the changing motivations and implications of terrorism. The rise of terrorism motivated by religious ideologies is especially central to questions of how the geography and goals of terrorism are changing. In addition, states, especially the United States of America, have come to define terrorism as a matter of global geopolitics rather than domestic policing. However, a focus upon the geography of counterterrorism suggests that there is a geographic mismatch between the organization of terrorists and the spatial means and goals of governments. In a word, states still rely upon the control of sovereign territory to counter terrorist networks. This too has implications for future conflict. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been a deluge of essays, analysis, and political punditry, often intertwined or disguised, on the topic of terrorism. The justification of another essay must rest on the possibility of further insight. Academic geography is a perspective rather than a defined subject matter, and I hope to use its key concepts to provide new ways of understanding the motivations behind contemporary terrorist acts, the geopolitics of antiterrorism, and its negative political geographic implications. Specifically, three geographic concepts are integrated into my argument, and I identify the importance of another that others are more qualified to discuss. First, the concept of geohistorical context is useful in identifying the complexities of the temporal and spatial influences upon, and of, terrorism. For example, the attacks of September 11, 2001, were simultaneously of that hour and of the past and present century.

Violence, Development, and Political Order

How are “development” and “violence” related? What role does “political order” play as an intermediate modulator? Where is the geography in all this? These are the questions I want to tackle in this chapter. “Development” is by now a colloquial expression that needs some washing, cleaning, and pressing to be put to good use. “Violence” always was in and of the streets, but academic introspection has provided it with additional meaning that makes it a slightly ambiguous concept. “Political order” can use a tiny bit of elaboration at the outset. “Development” in conjunction with rich and poor countries is a notion mainly popularized after World War II that indicated the belief that state societies may normally pass through stages on their way from poor to rich (as individual humans do in their development from child to adult). They may be early or late, quick or slow, and they can be assisted from the outside or hindered. In hindsight one would perhaps have expected more discussion of the possible conditions of “abnormal” or “retarded” development in the case of countries. Subsequently the development of countries became increasingly encompassing (e.g., political, social), but it soon turned out that the concept was clearly overstretched in this way. In addition, “development” became part of controversies where dependency, essential difference, nonlinearity, and contingency in different packages were marshaled against the protagonists of modernization and the policy field that had been put to work to solve the “development issue.” After more than fifty years of trying, development as a practice and an intellectual field is not in good shape. The overall faith is waning and the funding does not grow, many of the recipes do not work, and the field has lost a clear demarcation though not its focus. At the same time much partial progress has been made (e.g., in the field of health and education and in regions such as East Asia). Basic notions of poverty and wealth and their backgrounds are better understood— there are many more data, better models, and more interpretive knowledge. Development is described in levels. Each level refers to an average and a distribution of certain attributes for the population of a country.

Territorial Ideology and Interstate Conflict : Comparative Considerations

We live in profoundly unsettling times. The daily newspapers are filled with stories about terrorist threats, stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and the efforts of ever more states to acquire nuclear weapons. At the same time, longstanding interstate and intrastate conflicts continue to dominate the lives of people in such diverse settings as Israel-Palestine, southern Sudan, the India-Pakistan border, and the interior of Colombia. The issues that underlie these conflicts are as diverse as their geographic settings, but they share one commonality: they are all framed by the territorial logic of the modern state system. The foregoing statement might seem self-evident for intrastate struggles between ethnic groups or for boundary conflicts between states because these conflicts are clearly tied to the territorial reach of the modern state. Yet even the international terrorist activities associated with movements such as al-Qaeda cannot be understood without reference to prevailing international territorial norms. This is because the existing political-geographic order is a fundamental catalyst for such movements and because responses to international terrorism are often channeled in and through states. Consider, for example, the circumstances of the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. Chief among the articulated reasons for the attack was a sense of eroding political and cultural sovereignty in the Islamic world, as symbolized, for example, by the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia and by the existence of a number of secular, Westernoriented regimes in the region. On the response side of the equation, a major focus of attention for the U.S. administration in the wake of September 11 was “regime change,” first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Against this backdrop, it is clearly important that we seek to understand the territorial logic of the modern state system and its role in different types of conflicts. A great deal of work has been done along these lines in recent decades. Scholars who have focused on the concept of the nation-state have devoted considerable attention to the gap between perception and reality that underlies the concept and have highlighted its pernicious influence in culturally diverse states.