The Methodological and Epistemological Developments in Conflict and Peace Studies

Conflict and peace studies is a field of knowledge and a contemporary academic dis cipline whose theories and concepts were formed in the second half of the twentieth century. However, the phenomenon of conflict is considered one of the oldest human phenomena. This article seeks to study and analyze the emergence and development of conflict and peace studies as a new scientific field, from its beginnings in post-World War II to the present time. In other words, this article deals with the progress of this scientific field through a review of all the basic stages that this field of knowledge has gone through. In its approach, this study resorted to the method of surveying many Western political references in the field of conflict and peace studies. Next, the study broke down the process of starting up and growing in this scientific field into specific periods that have basic elements. These include figuring out how important each stage is, how long it takes for this scientific specialization to become established, and what the most important ideas are at each stage. Finally, we compared these stages to discover the nature of the change and development in this scientific field.