Introduction: the crises of 2020 and the field of conflict studies
Richard E. Rubenstein and Solon Simmons
The outbreak of the coronavirus and global spread of the disease CO VID-19 in the spring and summer of 2020 shocked and frightened the world. The shock was particularly disconcerting, however, in relatively prosperous, advanced industrial nations that had long considered themselves immune from such ancient dangers. With the advantage of hindsight, one can see that the plague was not the only recent threat to human security that seemed strangely antediluvian. Rather than experiencing the nuclear exchanges and cyberwars feared by many experts, nations rich and poor were afflicted by natural disasters, many linked to climate change, that appeared almost biblical in their scope and effects: earthquakes, cyclones, fires, and floods. But in important respects, the pandemic was even more devastating, since it was followed by a series of aftershocks that intensified and extended the crisis.
To begin with, combating the virus meant quarantining populations and imposing new controls over the social behavior of large numbers of people. The immediate effects of such measures were to suspend normal business activities, generating massive losses of capital and jobs, to curtail internal and international travel, and to close schools and places of public accommodation. The results soon began to resemble the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s, with workers, poor farmers, and people of color bearing the brunt of the economic damage, as well as suffering disproportionate losses from the COVID-19 plague itself. Moreover, as it became clear that authoritative figures and institutions in a number of nations had failed to secure their people against these biological and economic threats, the relations between citizens and authorities were subjected to enormous strain. In the United States and certain other nations, the shocks of medical vulnerability, economic decline, and exacerbated inequality were compounded by militant (although largely nonviolent) movements of protest challenging the systems that had allegedly failed to secure people’s basic rights and interests. Protests and demonstrations organized by groups on the left emphasized the role of political and economic institutions and attitudes in perpetuating racism, sexism, and other forms of structural and cultural inequality, while those emanating from the right emphasized threats to individual freedom posed by bureaucratic authorities and scientific experts.
For researchers in the field of conflict analysis and resolution, the successive shocks of the pandemic and ensuing conflicts constituted a major challenge. Although it was not clear that the crisis had generated new social struggles, it seemed undeniable that it had inflamed existing conflicts, especially those between antagonistic socio-economic, political, and cultural groupings. What, then, could be said about the likely course of these struggles? Would they expand and escalate? Would new opportunities for peaceful conflict resolution be presented? The scholars' attempts to project existing trends into the near-term and middle-term futures were complicated by two further features of this unusual crisis: the rise of radical uncertainty and the delegitimization of established governance systems.
Radical uncertainty
Normally, advanced industrial nations rely heavily on short term planning that assumes the predictability of everyday events. (The stock phrase, "business as usual” reflects this assumption). But the pandemic and its aftershocks undermined predictability, making it virtually impossible to say when the virus would be brought under control, how it could be expected to develop pending the development of an effective vaccine, or when economic and social activity in affected nations could safely resume. In fact, as the crisis continued throughout 2020 with no end in sight, the uncertainty increased and became more general. People's expectations that social and political relations would return to some “normal” status quo ante tended to erode. Analysts assumed that the coronavirus would eventually disappear as a major public health problem, but many came to believe that post-corona society would be altered in fundamental respects. For example, serious environmental threats would almost certainly continue to cause destruction and alarm the public as a result of ongoing climate changes, creating demands for protective and preventative government action not unlike those made in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Meanwhile, the inability of private and public organizations to make reliable short-term plans played havoc with the economy, as well as with many people’s sense of personal stability.
Delegitimization of governance systems
The failure of established leaders and institutions to deal effectively with the pandemic and its sequelae constituted another shock, especially in economically advanced nations that had long considered themselves models of effective public administration and responsible citizenship. As the United States became the global epicenter of the pandemic, accounting for more than one-quarter of all coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths, U.S. residents found themselves observing governance systems in nations such as China, Vietnam, and South Korea with envy and incomprehension. Utilizing a combination of top-down state authority and bottom-up popular collectivism, these regimes apparently brought the virus under control, as did certain European states that could rely on relatively efficient administrations and disciplined populations. But from the United States and Brazil to India and the Philippines, in nation after nation that failed to deal adequately with the pandemic and its economic consequences, relationships between ruling elites and subject groups were seriously disrupted, as were relations between scientific and technical experts and masses of people now unsure about what or whom to believe.
Pre-pandemic political and social systems were clearly impacted by the crisis, although it is not yet clear how profound and long-lasting these changes will prove to be. Of particular importance to conflict analysts are the implications of changes that alter or bypass existing institutions intended to manage social conflicts, since this sort of disruption can open doors both to escalated struggles and to new peacemaking initiatives. For example, the current burst of demonstrations and other activities on behalf of racial justice in the United States could conceivably generate a white nationalist backlash that, exploited by unscrupulous or desperate political leaders, might make violent confrontations such as the Charlottesville, Virginia riot of 2019 seem commonplace. Alternatively, one can imagine the present strong surge of public support for organizations protesting police violence generating a new popular consensus that could support multiracial peacebuilding in the United States on a large scale. In short, to maintain that the pandemic of 2020 and its aftershocks have very likely inflamed existing social and cultural conflicts by no means forecloses the possibility that, by shaking up existing systems of governance, they have also created new opportunities for effective conflict resolution.
With these thoughts in mind, the editors of this volume invited selected colleagues in the field of conflict studies to write about the pandemic’s impact on social conflicts which they have studied or tried to resolve, and the likely course of these conflicts in the post-pandemic period. This was a challenging task not only because of the general uncertainties noted earlier but also because periods of recovery from historical crises tend to be especially volatile. In the depths of an environmental, economic, or political crisis, people struggle to regain their psychological balance and to deal with the immediate threats presented by a radically altered environment.
But, as the situation changes and elements of recovery make themselves felt, attitudes and behaviors change as well. Hope reappears, and with it, anger and impatience. Paths to the future that seemed entirely obscured now glimmer seductively, and activist social currents begin to flow, ending the period of mass paralysis. Especially, considering that periods of recovery from major crisis are often lengthy, halting, and uneven, what should conflict specialists say about the prospects for intergroup conflict and peace after the pandemic?
In preparing to answer such questions, the contributors to this volume were encouraged to put aside the common cautionary attitude that discourages scholars from projecting current trends into an uncertain future. Instead, understanding that they were helping to begin a discussion, not to utter its last words, they willingly embraced the risks of engaging in "educated speculation.” In a Concluding Note that follows the last of these essays, we will have something more to say about the insights that such an approach can produce. For the moment, we would emphasize that these authors, taken together, constitute a model of multidisciplinary interests and expertise. The disciplinary backgrounds represented here range from political science, sociology, and history to social psychology, law, engineering, environmental studies, cultural studies, and religious studies, all now oriented toward the understanding and resolution of deep-rooted social conflicts. Furthermore, as the essays themselves make clear, the work of these contributors individually and collectively bridges the gap between the theory and practice of peacebuilding.
Three editorial preferences governed the selection of the contributions to this volume:
First, the editors determined that the book as a whole should express a global perspective and should examine the pandemic’s likely impact on transnational, not just local, conflict and conflict resolution trends. For this reason, they solicited essays on such topics as climate change, transnational peacebuilding, nationalist vs. globalist straggles, international migration, great power competition, contentious politics and authoritarianism, and the history of multinational crises. This same focus, which transgresses the customary boundary between "international” and "domestic” studies, also guides the research and teaching efforts of the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, the academic home of a number of the contributors.
Second, hypothesizing that social conflicts are likely to escalate where crises such as the pandemic exacerbate social inequality, make marginalized groups conscious of unsatisfied needs, and frighten more secure or privileged groups, we solicited essays on current and potential intergroup conflicts involving vulnerable social formations. This produced the contributions to the present volume on class struggle, gender-related conflict, race-related conflict, and conflicts involving religious organizations. In keeping with the general thrust of this book, the authors explored not only the possibilities that such conflicts might escalate, but also the opportunities that periods of crisis and recovery might present for breakthroughs to peace.
Finally, the authors were strongly encouraged to engage in "educated speculation” about the likely course of conflicts after the pandemic and the possibilities of resolving or mitigating them in the mid-term and long-term future. Several essays produced in response to this challenge outlined new possibilities of dealing with conflicts visibly escalating under the pressures of the interrelated biomedical, economic, and political crises. Two authors presented a meaningful, wide-ranging discussion of "peace engineering”; a third brought the insights of social psychology to bear on Israeli-Palestinian relations; and a fourth offered a unique process-oriented perspective on the intensifying conflict between the U.S. and China. In addition, innovative methods of conflict resolution in response to systemic changes were discussed in contributors’ explorations of a “big peace” perspective, "regenerative” methods of conflict resolution, possible United Nations reforms, and the use of conflict resolution methods in building anti-racist coalitions.
Considering the overall editorial direction of this study, a central organizing principle has been the perception that serious combined crises of the sort that now afflict global society disrupt existing sociopolitical, economic, and cultural systems sufficiently to create new possibilities of both conflict escalation and conflict resolution. The hypothesis that generates discussion in virtually every chapter is that the post-pandemic world will be one in which heightened dangers of increased intergroup and international violence will coexist with promising new opportunities for peacemaking and peacebuilding. Our authors agree that world society is unlikely to return to "normalcy” featuring minor changes in intergroup and international relations. Most of them are more optimistic than pessimistic about the possibilities of achieving mitigation, if not resolution, of social conflicts exacerbated by the crisis. In any event, reading these essays should assist both students of conflict and general readers to understand that the period of recovery from the current crisis is likely to present us with choices of lasting consequence - opportunities to make things better or worse that require serious consideration now.
Part I
