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| Can Peace Research Make Peace?: Lessons in Academic Diplomacy
ISBN: 9781315570778
Platform/Publisher: Taylor & Francis / Routledge
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Politics & International Relations; Asian Politics; Political Theory; Security Studies - Pol & Intl Relns;
This book is about the process and, more generally, about the opportunities that peace research and the teaching of conflict resolution can offer academic diplomacy. As such the book is both an empirical and a theoretical project. While it aims at being the most comprehensive analysis of the conflict in West Kalimantan, it also launches a new theoretical approach, neo-pragmatism, and offers lessons for the prevention of conflicts elsewhere. While being based on the classical pragmatist theories of truth and explanation, the approach developed in this book incorporates the complications to social science theory caused by the 'discovery' of socially constructed realities, and concepts such as speech acts. Yet, instead of just theorizing speech acts and social constructs, the theoretical mission is to offer pragmatic, detailed, concrete prescriptions of what to do to deconstruct realities that threaten peace by the means available for research and scholars of peace.
Timo Kivimäki is Professor of international relations with particular expertise in peace and conflict studies at the University of Bath. Previously he has held professorships at the University of Helsinki, University of Lapland, and at the University of Copenhagen. Professor Kivimäki has also been director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (Copenhagen) and the Institute of Development Studies of the University of Helsinki. In addition to purely academic work Professor Kivimäki has been a frequent consultant to the Finnish, Danish, Dutch, Russian, Malaysian, Indonesian and Swedish governments, as well as to several UN and EU organizations on conflict and terrorism. He was President Martti Ahtisaari's (mediators) adviser in the Aceh peace talks, and the initiator of the West Kalimantan peace process, led by Indonesia's Vice President, Jusuf Kalla. Dr Kivimäki's latest book, The Long Peace of East Asia was published by Ashgate in 2014. |
