Tag Archives: Padraig O Malley

Ending Wars is the bold title of a new book co-edited by Lord John Alderdice and Padraig O Malley and published earlier this year by the New England Journal of Public Policy.  Its companion publication entitled The Changing Character of War and Peacemaking (2023) was curated along the same lines as a compilation of articles penned by a wide range of contributors to the conferences organised by the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflicts (CRIC) held at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Most would remember Francis Fukuyama’s End of History and the Last Man (1992).  Following the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we were lulled into believing that liberal democracy had won the day.  Yet September 11 occurred, and more recently the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Alderdice in his Introduction to the special issue of Ending Wars cited that the Global Peace Index (GPI) the leading measure of global peacefulness has been deteriorating over the last 6 years and the rules based international order continues to be under threat.  At the time of writing this the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza conflict rumbles on though we may well have reached a denouement outside the sphere of the United Nations and of international law.

As Alderdice explains, building peace involves communities that have different perspectives finding ways of conducting their differences without the use of physical force.  With his background as a consultant psychiatrist, Alderdice sees politics as the “psychology of large groups” and how we function, not as individuals, but as communities.  The aim of conflict resolution may not necessarily entail reaching an agreement on all social, political and economic issues. Put simply, we merely need to reach “a place where those who differ deeply can agree to disagree without killing each other”.