The Taking Peace Seriously Project.

Decades of research has taught us a great deal about conflict, conflict escalation and de-escalation. However, relatively little research has focused on peace. This project will attempt to identify and model the necessary and sufficient conditions and processes for peace. 
Our first initiatives in this area will involve qualitative work with expert practitioners working with effective peace initiatives. This includes interviews and a working meeting. We plan to convene a session entitled: Taking Peace Seriously: A Practice-to-Theory Dialogue on Effective Systemic Peace Initiatives. We will bring together a small group of skilled practitioners who will each: 1) send out a short brief of an "effective" case that they have worked on (before the gathering) and then 2) make a presentation of their case at the meeting, with an emphasis on their sense of the necessary and/or sufficient conditions and processes at the core of such effective initiatives. Our Dynamical-Systems Team will be present (PhD students, etc.) for this 2-3 day meeting where the cases are presented and digested and then the basic theoretical insights are somehow summarized during the last day - with room for reaction and feedback from the practitioners. This will be grounded-theory development - with an emphasis on peace (fostering positive attractors), and an aim towards identifying the basic parameters for a dynamical-minimal model of peace.