PEPS has Gained Further Attention

Abstract

Nowadays, it seems that investigating peace and conflict is more crucial than before. The recrudescence of armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine reminded scholars that much remains to be done not only to understand determinants and consequences of wars but also to provide policy-makers with workable solutions to build a long-lasting peace. Albeit apparently novel, the importance of investigating peace andwar is not a novelty for peace economists and peace scientists. In particular, PEPS also has played and keeps playing a role in this field of research. PEPS has been founded byWalter Isard in 1993 with the aim to create a novel outlet for peace scientists and peace economists. In particular, PEPSwas designed to attract contributions from an interdisciplinary community of scholars from awide variety of disciplines such as economics and political science, as well as regional science, geography and mathematics. Moreover, PEPS was intended to combine both positive and normative studies alongside policy-oriented papers. As said above, much remains to be done. First, we are not still fully aware of economic determinants of political violence. In this respect, it is still worth citing some lines in the preface of North et al. (2009) [...] The absence of a workable integrated theory of economics and politics reflects the lack of systematic thinking about the central problem of violence in human societies. How societies solve the ubiquitous threat of violence shapes and constraints the forms that human interaction can take [...]’. Secondly, we also do not have an adequate knowledge of the wide set of costs emerging in the presence of actual and potential violence. On the one hand, we are now aware that the costs of wars in many cases do constitute a life-long burden for polities, societies and people. In this respect, in the latest years as peace scholars we have departed from the accounting approach to armed conflict to take into consideration a broader approach involving long-term economic and political aspects as well as long-term psychological and societal consequences. Such general considerations are only the backbone of a literature