Call for Papers
Preliminary Call for Papers: Juan Manuel Falomir-Pichastor, University of Geneva (CH)
War and Peace: Social psychological approaches to armed conflicts and humanitarian issues
9-11 September 2004, Geneva, Switzerland
Daniel Muñoz-Rojas, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva (CH)
Xenia Chryssochoou, Social Psychology European Research Institute. University of Surrey (UK) and Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Athens, GR) (from January 2004)We invite social psychologists to a meeting in order to discuss armed conflicts and associated humanitarian issues. By armed conflicts we mean conflicts between constituted nation-states and conflicts between states and national/ethnic groups looking for state recognition, independence, governance and power that intentionally cause destruction and casualties.
Priority will be given to empirical work that explicitly addresses the initiation, development and growth, the maintenance and the consequences of armed conflicts as described previously. This endeavour will be informed by the social psychological knowledge acquired on social discrimination, intergroup relations, social influence, communication and propaganda, collective violence, obedience and legitimacy.
The aim of this meeting is to present empirical work allowing the opportunity to debate and contrast social-psychological assumptions in the particular context of war and military actions. Furthermore the meeting will provide the opportunity to social psychologists to debate with members of the International Committee of the Red Cross who are invited to participate and present their experiences and concerns.
Papers are invited around the following issues:
- How groups are reaching consensus over a military intervention? (issues of leadership, power, propaganda and processes of social influence in order to gain public support)
- What are the social representations of war and humanitarian norms? (universalism or relativism of humanitarian norms, gap between adherence and application of norms, moral disengagement and humanitarian norms)
- How armed conflicts are justified and legitimated? (real or symbolic threats and identities, issues of morality, patriotism, national treason, construction of otherness, punitive conflicts)
- What are the social psychological factors that influence the behaviour of combatants and the perpetuation of inhumanities? (authority, orders and sanctions, group cohesiveness, victimisation, dehumanisation of the enemy)
- What are the social psychological factors involved in conflict resolutions and peace building? (reaching agreements, issues of trust, ceasefire and disarmament, reconciliation)
Please send a summary (1000 words)to Juan Manuel Falomir, Psychologie Sociale, FPSE, 40 Bd du Pont d'Arve, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland or by email to Juan.Falomir@pse.unige.ch by 30 April 2004.
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