Georgetown College offers an A.B. degree in Justice and Peace Studies, as well as a Minor in Justice and Peace Studies (open to students in COL, SFS, MSB, and NHS).
The emerging interdisciplinary field of Peace Studiesknown variously as peace and conflict studies, conflict analysis and resolution, or peace and justice studiesis concerned with practical, normative questions of how to realize peace and justice in the everyday world. The ultimate goal of Peace Studies is to produce practically useful scholarship on how to create a more just and peaceful world. Such scholarship requires empirical accounts of the causes of war and violence, practical understandings of how to prevent and ameliorate harmful social conditions, and theoretical reflections on the definition of justice. Each of these investigations can take place at all levels of social organization, from the individual to the family, from the small group to the nation, or at the level of the international community.
Our subject matter asks many basic yet complex questions. What is peace What is conflict How can one be encouraged and sustained, and the other mitigated or avoided Students are exposed to a rich and contentious literature on the nature of peace and justice, which informs discussions in many other traditions as well. Questions of central interest to the field concern the material and psychological determinants of aggression, the role of families and other institutions in producing aggressive or peaceful societies, the origins of social inequality, techniques and implications of representing others, and the role of such factors in the building of communities. We also explore issues including the role of religious identity in informing the social conscience, when wars are just or unjust and what causes them, the efficacy of international norms of conduct, relationships between conflict and social structures, how nonviolence is practiced in social movements, and the effectiveness of various techniques of resolving conflict in different settings.
