About ISSP
The Initiative for the Study of a Stable Peace (ISSP) is a community of scholars dedicated to studying peace and conflict transformation through the lens of mainline political economy.
Our work is inspired by Kenneth E. Boulding. In Stable Peace (1978), Boulding noted that “peace has been regarded as a utopian, unattainable, perhaps dull ideal … over which we have no control” (ix-x). In contrast, he believed that peace was not only obtainable but an object of choice, and he sought to understand the conditions and circumstances under which a stable peace—a “situation in which the probability of war is so small that it does not really enter into the calculations of any of the people involved” (p. 13)—might emerge and sustain. The ISSP embraces Boulding’s challenge to research and decipher the nuances of stable peace in its varying and dynamic forms within the broader war-peace system.
The ISSP embraces Boulding’s challenge to research and decipher the nuances of stable peace in its varying and dynamic forms within the broader war-peace system.
“...peace has been regarded as a utopian, unattainable, perhaps dull idea... over which we have no control.”
Our unique approach to the study of peace is inspired by what Peter J. Boettke calls the “mainline tradition” in the social sciences. This tradition refers to “a set of positive propositions about social order that were held in common from Adam Smith onward” (Living Economics, 2012: xvii). The foundational principles of the mainline framework are summarized as follows:
There are at least three propositions regarding the nature of human action and the role of institutions that mainline economics critically adopt and advance: (1) there are limits to the benevolence that individuals can rely on, and therefore they face cognitive and epistemic limits as they negotiate the social world, but (2) formal and informal institutions guide and direct human activity, and, so (3) social cooperation is possible without central direction. Stated another way, by relying on the emergent and human-devised rules of conduct, agents possessing both the capacities and the failings of the typical human being can nonetheless work together to achieve their individual and collective goals (Boettke, Haeffele-Balch, and Storr, Mainline Economics, 2016: 4).
ISSP provides a virtual community for scholars committed to studying stable peace through the framework offered by these foundational propositions. Rather than envisioning peace as a result of moral perfection or central direction, our members study how formal and informal institutions shape the likelihood that real, imperfect, fallible human beings will cooperate peacefully with one another. Relatedly, our members study the limitations and consequences of top-down attempts to impose peace within and across societies.
The ISSP engages in a variety of academic activities. We host a regular virtual seminar series to share and discuss research. We hold virtual reading groups where scholars convene to discuss ideas and research addressing the most pressing issues related to stable peace. We host virtual interviews and discussions with members about their scholarship. Finally, we pursue research projects focused on understanding the nuances of a stable peace.