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The Need for a Research Network

The world is changing rapidly. The intensification of great power rivalries, the Ukraine and Iran wars, the COVID-19 pandemic, intensifying U.S.-China rivalry, Brexit, and the rise of populism in world politics all signal that we are living through a period of profound transition in international politics. Many scholars and practitioners have warned that the United States and China could fall into the “Thucydides Trap,” raising the possibility of military conflict between the world’s leading established power and a rapidly rising power. Others argue that the transformation may be even more fundamental, with the current international order potentially giving way to an era characterized by greater disorder, conflict, and uncertainty. Understanding the nature and dynamics of change--and, in particular, the possibilities for peaceful change--is therefore an urgent task for scholars and policymakers in the decades ahead. We need to understand not only why international orders change, but also how such transformations can occur without war and how peaceful orders can be created, maintained, and strengthened.

Peaceful Change in International Relations

Change and peace are both enduring concerns of the international relations (IR) discipline. Indeed, modern IR emerged in part from interwar debates about peaceful change in Europe and from postwar theoretical and policy debates, particularly among American Realist scholars. The peaceful end of the Cold War subsequently renewed scholarly interest in the possibility of fundamental international transformation, including among constructivist and critical approaches to IR. Today, efforts to make IR a genuinely global discipline, by drawing on the experiences and perspectives of different countries, civilizations, regions, and social groups, have further expanded the scope of these debates. The peaceful reform of global governance institutions is an important part of this discussion.

Peaceful change has also been a significant theme in the foreign policies of many countries. It featured prominently in the policies of Gorbachev’s Soviet Union, Deng Xiaoping and his successors in China, Jawaharlal Nehru’s India, and the European Helsinki process. Many states, particularly small and middle powers across different regions, have embraced the principle of peaceful coexistence. South Africa and Brazil, for example, have explicitly emphasized peaceful change in their foreign policies, while small states in Europe and elsewhere have often taken pride in their role as advocates and promoters of peaceful international transformation. Yet, despite the importance of these developments, there is still no dedicated global scholarly program or publication venue focused systematically on peaceful change. This is a significant gap in both scholarship and policy, particularly at a time when the consequences of international conflict and disorder have profound implications for human security and the future of the planet.

About GRENPEC

The Global Research Network on Peaceful Change (GRENPEC) is a research network of scholars and institutions from around the world dedicated to the study of peaceful change at the international, regional, and domestic levels. We understand peaceful change as a concept that exists along a continuum. At its minimalist end, it refers to international change and transformation that occur without military force or war. At its maximalist end, it encompasses not only the absence of war, but also the development of sustained, non-violent cooperation aimed at creating a more peaceful, equitable, and just world order. This broad conception allows the network to bring together scholars working on diverse dimensions of peaceful change while encouraging dialogue across theoretical, disciplinary, geographical, and methodological boundaries.

Objectives

The central goal of GRENPEC is to encourage scholars and practitioners to study change and peace together, with particular attention to the causes, sources, mechanisms, processes, and consequences of peaceful change at the international, regional, and domestic levels. As an emerging research program, the study of peaceful change has generated growing interest among scholars and practitioners of international relations. Its relevance is especially clear as the international system experiences a new round of systemic tensions involving a rising China and established powers such as the United States, alongside non-traditional security challenges including tariff wars, pandemics, climate-change-induced disasters, and other transnational crises. The network seeks to address several important questions:
  • • Under what conditions can major shifts in the international distribution of power occur without war?
  • • How can rising and established powers accommodate one another peacefully?
  • • How do regions transform into peaceful orders, and under what conditions can those orders deteriorate?
  • • What institutions, norms, practices, and forms of diplomacy facilitate peaceful change?
  • • How can global governance institutions be reformed without generating violent conflict?
  • • What lessons can be drawn from historical and contemporary experiences of peaceful transformation?
  • • How can the experiences of small and middle powers contribute to our understanding of peaceful change?

Building a Global Research Community

The aims to:
  1. 1. Connect scholars and institutionsworking on peaceful change across regions and disciplines.
  2. 2. Develop new research initiativesfocused on the causes, mechanisms, and consequences of peaceful change.
  3. 3. Link and publicize existing research projectsundertaken by network members.
  4. 4. Facilitate collaborationamong scholars, institutions, and practitioners.
  5. 5. Create a freely accessible platformfor sharing research, publications, events, and other resources related to peaceful change.
  6. 6. Promote dialogue between scholarship and policy, making research on peaceful change more accessible and relevant to policymakers and the broader public.

Origins of the Network

GRENPEC was inaugurated at a special panel on peaceful change at the International Studies Association (ISA) conference in Toronto in March 2019. Approximately 25 scholars participated in the inaugural meeting, marking the beginning of a global effort to develop peaceful change as a more coherent and sustained area of research.

Membership and Partnerships

GRENPEC welcomes two broad forms of participation:
  1. 1. Institutional partnershipsUniversities, research centers, institutes, and other organizations engaged in research or policy work related to peaceful change may participate as institutional partners.
  1. 2. Individual scholarsIndividual researchers whose work engages with peaceful change, whether directly or through related questions of international order, conflict, cooperation, diplomacy, regional transformation, or global governance, may join the network. The network will publicize research projects, publications, conferences, workshops, and other initiatives undertaken by its members, both collectively and individually. By bringing these efforts together, GRENPEC aims to make research on peaceful change more visible, accessible, and influential.
A Shared Commitment GRENPEC is founded on a simple but consequential proposition: peaceful change should be studied as systematically and seriously as conflict and war. Understanding how international, regional, and domestic orders can transform without violence is not merely an academic exercise. It is essential to addressing some of the defining challenges of contemporary international politics. By building a global community of scholars and institutions devoted to this task, GRENPEC seeks to advance knowledge of peaceful change and contribute to the development of more peaceful and sustainable forms of international order.
GRENPEC

Introducing Global Research Network on Peaceful Change