The Peace Science Digest is a publication to create awareness about the contributions peace research can make to prevent war and violence.

We link the work of academics to peacebuilders, peace advocates, educators, the media, elected officials, and others who can benefit from the research.

Our analyses can transform thinking, change narratives, strengthen peace work and advocacy, and improve policy-making.

Presenting current peace research without academic jargon, with key talking points, practical implications, further reading, and contemporary relevance, we advance useful knowledge.

The Need for the Digest

Peace and Conflict Studies (henceforth: Peace Science) has emerged as an academic discipline with its own graduate programs, handbooks, research tools, theories, associations, journals, and conferences. As with most scientific communities, the slow migration of academic knowledge into practical application becomes a limiting factor of a field’s growth, its impact, and the overall effectiveness of its practitioners. The expanding academic field of Peace Science continues to produce high volumes of significant research that often goes unnoticed by practitioners, the media, public policy-makers, and other possible beneficiaries. This is unfortunate because Peace Science ultimately should inform the practice on how to bring about peace.

The research and theory needed to guide peace workers to produce more enduring and positive peace, not only more peace studies, have come to stay. Bridging the gap between the peace movement moralism and foreign policy pragmatism is a major challenge facing everyone who seeks to achieve peace on Earth. (Johan Galtung and Charles Webel)

To address this issue, the War Prevention Initiative has created the Peace Science Digest as a way to disseminate top selections of research and findings from the field’s academic community to the many possible beneficiaries.

Our Goal as Part of the War Prevention Initiative

Contribute to Peace Science and public scholarship as a way to promote war prevention.
Share information and resources with multiple constituencies in an understandable manner.
Advance the understanding and growth of the Global Peace System by promoting, developing, and collaborating with peacebuilding efforts across all sectors of society.

Underlying Assumptions of the War Prevention Initiative

Peace Science provides a path to a more just and peaceful world.
Poverty, employment, energy, education, the environment, and other social and natural factors are interconnected in peacebuilding.
We are at a stage in human history where we can say with confidence that there are better and more effective alternatives to war and violence.

Article Selection and Analysis

Featured articles are selected based on their contribution to the field of Peace Science and the scientific integrity derived from the peer-review process. Peer-reviewed journals evaluate the quality and validity of a scientific study, giving us the freedom to focus on an article’s relevance and potential contribution to the field.
The authors of the Peace Science Digest do not claim their analysis is the only way to look at any given topic but aim to extract key elements based on the core principles and high ethical standards consistent in all publications of the War Prevention Initiative.

Key Peace Science Journals

Listen to this Talk Nation Radio interview outlining the Peace Science Digest:

Peace Science Digest

Peace Science Made Accessible, Understandable, and Useful.

Project Overview