نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
عنوان مقاله English
نویسندگان English
In recent decades, the issue of sustainable peace has become one of the most fundamental concerns of scholars in political science, sociology, moral philosophy, and international relations. The contemporary world is faced with a series of simultaneous crises: regional wars, great power competition, political instability, economic divisions, climate crises, and the collapse of social capital in many societies. This situation shows that peace, contrary to popular belief, is not simply the absence of war, but requires moral, legal, cultural, and structural foundations that can organize relations between states and nations based on justice, mutual respect, and sustainable cooperation. In today's world of intense and accelerating risks, peace is no longer a luxurious moral virtue or a humanitarian slogan on the fringes of politics, but a condition for the possibility of survival and continuity of any civilized life. We live in a situation where regional wars, geopolitical rivalries between great powers, climate crises, class divisions, forced migrations, and the erosion of social capital, like overlapping layers, have darkened the horizon of the future. In this context, peace, if reduced to simply the “absence of war” and a few security agreements between states, effectively becomes a linguistic cover for the continuation of structural injustice and violence.
Peace among peoples, which is the focus of this article, only makes sense when it is understood as a moral-civilized state; a state in which dialogue, equal recognition, distributive justice, and the pursuit of virtue are embedded in the fabric of institutions and lifestyles. The dominant logic of contemporary political economy, stemming from late capitalism and instrumental rationality, has not only eroded the possibility of solidarity, but has itself become an engine for producing insecurity and instability. In such an order, man is reduced to a replaceable force in the cycle of accumulation and nature to an exhaustible resource for unbridled exploitation; as a result, violence is no longer embodied solely on the fronts of war, but also in labor relations, in urban marginalization, in the gradual death of the environment, and in the daily humiliation of human dignity. Against such a perspective, this article emphasizes the necessity of moving beyond the positivist and state-centered reading of peace and redefining it within the horizon of “the expansion of global virtuousness”; A horizon in which peace is not the product of a balance of fear, but rather the outcome of rebuilding public morality, institutionalizing a common moral language, and forming a civilizational will for coexistence and dialogue between peoples and centers of civilization. Our central question is what necessities make peace an inevitable thing in the current world and what requirements should be placed before governments and societies as a kind of moral-political contract so that peace can go beyond the level of diplomatic slogans and become a plan for the civilizational reorganization of the world. Accordingly, with the aim of examining the multidimensional nature of sustainable peace, this article attempts to analyze the link between justice, ethics, the environment, cultural diplomacy, and religious traditions, and to show that sustainable peace is only possible when these dimensions are seen together.
Methodology
At the methodological level, this research is based on a normative-theoretical and analytical-conceptual approach, and instead of moving from empirical data to theory, it extracts a normative model for peace among peoples from a critical rereading of theories, concepts, and discourses. The starting point of the research is to reformulate the question of peace in the “inter-people” and not simply “inter-state” horizon; Therefore, the method of work is to first carefully conceptualize fundamental concepts such as sustainable peace, political justice, cosmopolitanism, risk society, and virtue ethics within the framework of contemporary political philosophy and peace literature, and then rearrange them into a coherent model for interpreting the current state of the world and the possibility of coexistence.
At the level of data collection tools, the research is based on documentary study and text analysis; This means that key philosophical works, contemporary theories of peace and justice, analytical texts on democracy, capitalism, global crises, as well as documents related to the discourse of peace and peace-based development have been analyzed. In the next step, using critical discourse analysis and emphasizing language, concepts, and normative assumptions, competing approaches to peace (realist, liberal, cosmopolitan, religious, and development-oriented) are comparatively evaluated to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of each in explaining peace among peoples. Based on this reconstruction and critical assessment, the conceptual model of the article has been gradually constructed; a model that formulates peace in four aspects: “sustainable dialogue, historical understanding, inter-civilizational participation, and the spread of virtue.” Thus, the research method is not merely descriptive, but also normative and prescriptive, and it attempts to propose, through a critical reading of existing theories, a set of requirements and practical solutions for peacebuilding among people during times of crisis.
Result and discussion
The research findings show that Perpetual Peace can only be achieved when it is based on justice, ethics, and cooperation among nations. Kant's theory of "Perpetual Peace" emphasizes the necessity of creating global legal and moral structures, while Rawls's proposal of "global political justice" attempts to narrow the gap between ethics and politics and provide a more realistic framework for peace. Despite their differences, these two theories emphasize one thing in common: peace is not possible without justice.
On the other hand, sociological research shows that emerging threats such as climate change, resource scarcity, forced migration, and social instability seriously threaten global peace. These findings show that sustainable peace requires the management of environmental and social crises and cannot be analyzed solely at the level of relations between states.
In the cultural field, cultural diplomacy, as a tool of soft power, plays an important role in reducing misunderstandings, strengthening mutual understanding, and creating platforms for cooperation between nations. Research findings show that sustainable peace is not possible without the participation of people, civil society organizations, artists, universities, and cultural networks.
Conclusion
The research results show that:
•Sustainable peace is not possible without global justice, respect for human rights, and common moral-legal structures.
•Emerging threats such as the climate crisis, social instability, and economic gaps seriously threaten global peace and should be considered in peace-oriented policies.
•Cultural diplomacy and soft power play an important role in people-based peacebuilding and can complement formal diplomacy.
Research Achievements
1. Providing a multidimensional theoretical framework for understanding sustainable peace
2. Demonstrating the link between justice, ethics, environment, and culture in achieving peace
Practical Solutions
•Strengthening justice-oriented international institutions
•Developing cultural diplomacy and exchange between nations
•Managing environmental crises as a prerequisite for peace
•Teaching peace and global ethics in educational systems
•Strengthening the role of religious institutions in promoting coexistence and rejecting violence
کلیدواژهها English