| Johan Galtung | |
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Johan Galtung, September 2002
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| Born | 24 October 1930 Oslo, Norway |
| Fields | Sociology, Peace and conflict studies |
| Institutions | Columbia University, University of Oslo, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) |
| Alma mater | University of Oslo |
| Known for | Principal founder of peace and conflict studies |
| Notable awards | Alternative Nobel Prize (1987) |
Johan Galtung (born 24 October 1930) is a Norwegian sociologist and the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies.[1] He founded the Peace Research Institute Oslo in 1959, serving as its Director until 1970, and established the Journal of Peace Research in 1964. In 1969, he was appointed by the King-in-Council to the world's first chair in peace and conflict studies, at the University of Oslo. He resigned his professorship in 1977, and has since held professorships at numerous universities around the world. He was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1987.
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Galtung was born in Oslo. He earned the Cand. Real. degree in mathematics (PhD equivalent[2][3]) at the University of Oslo in 1956,[4] and a year later completed the Mag. Art. degree in sociology (i.e. U.S. Ph.D. equivalent) at the same university. Galtung received the first of nine honorary doctorates in 1975.[5][6]
Galtung's father and paternal grandfather were both physicians. The Galtung name has its origins in Hordaland, where his paternal grandfather was born. Nevertheless, his mother, Helga Holmboe, was born in central Norway, in Trøndelag, while his father was born in Østfold, in the south. Galtung has been married twice, and has two children by his first wife Ingrid Eide, Harald Galtung and Andreas Galtung, and two by his second wife Fumiko Nishimura, Irene Galtung and Fredrik Galtung, the co-founder and chief executive of Tiri.[7]
Upon receiving his mag.art. degree, Galtung moved to Columbia University, in New York City, where he taught for five semesters as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology.[8] In 1959, Galtung returned to Oslo, where he founded the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). He served as the institute's director until 1969, and saw the institute develop from a department within the Norwegian Institute of Social Research into an independent research institute with enabling funds from the Norwegian Ministry of Education.[9]
In 1964, Galtung led PRIO to establish the first academic journal devoted to Peace Studies: the Journal of Peace Research.[9] In the same year, he assisted in the founding of the International Peace Research Association.[10]
In 1969 he left PRIO for a position as professor of peace and conflict research at the University of Oslo, a position he held until 1978.[9] He then served as the director general of the International University Centre in Dubrovnik, also serving as the president of the World Future Studies Federation.[11] He has also held visiting positions at other universities, including Santiago, Chile, the United Nations University in Geneva, and at Columbia, Princeton and the University of Hawaii.[12] He has served at so many universities that he has "probably taught more students on more campuses around the world than any other contemporary sociologist."[11] Galtung is currently teaching courses in the Human Science Department at Saybrook University.[13]
Galtung is a prolific researcher, having made contributions to many fields in sociology. He has published more than 1000 articles and over 100 books.[14] Economist and fellow peace researcher Kenneth Boulding has said of Galtung that his "output is so large and so varied that it is hard to believe that it comes from a human".[15]
He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[16]
Galtung experienced World War II in German-occupied Norway, and as a 12 year old saw his father arrested by the Nazis. By 1951 he was already a committed peace mediator, and elected to do 18 months of social service in place of his obligatory military service. After 12 months, Galtung insisted that the remainder of his social service be spent in activities relevant to peace, to which the Norwegian authorities responded by sending him to prison, where he served six months.[8]
While Galtung's academic research is clearly intended to promote peace, he has shifted toward more concrete and constructive peace mediation as he has grown older. In 1993, he co-founded "Transcend - A Peace, Development and Environment Network,"[4] an organization for conflict transformation by peaceful means. There are four traditional but unsatisfactory ways in which conflicts between two parties are handled:
Galtung tries to break with these four unsatisfactory ways of handling a conflict by finding a "fifth way," where both A and B feel that they win. The method also insists that basic human needs – such as survival, physical well-being, liberty, and identity – be respected.[17]
Galtung himself has employed the "Transcend" Method while serving as a negotiator in a number of international conflicts. He views his role as that of helping the parties clarify their objectives, and working to come up with solutions that meet the objectives of all parties. He presents them with concrete proposals that are intended to give both sides the sense that they are winners. The 1995 negotiations between Ecuador and Peru are an example of the apparent success of these methods: the two countries had fought three wars since 1941 over an uninhabited and resource-poor border region. Galtung proposed converting the area to a bi-national park, and both sides found this an acceptable solution.[17]
Galtung's theoretical work proposes that there are four ways in which conflict can emerge: conflicts within a person or between persons; conflicts between races, sexes, generations, or classes; conflicts between states; and conflicts between civilizations or multi-state regions, such as the Cold War.[17]
Galtung has held several significant positions in international research councils and has been an advisor to several international organisations. Since 2004 he has been a member of the Advisory Council of the Committee for a Democratic UN.
He has also written many empirical and theoretical articles, dealing most frequently with issues of peace and conflict research. His work is distinguished by his unique perspective as well as the importance he attributes to innovation and interdisciplinarity.
He is one of the authors of an influential account of news values which are the factors which determine what coverage is given to what stories in the news. Galtung also originated the concept of Peace Journalism, which is increasingly influential in communications and media studies.
Galtung is frequently referenced with regard to concepts with which he is strongly associated:
He has also distinguished himself in public debates concerning, among other things, less-developed countries, defence issues, and the Norwegian EU-debate. In 1987 he was given the Right Livelihood Award. He developed the TRANSCEND Method described above.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Galtung has made several predictions of when the USA will no longer be a functioning superpower, a stance that has attracted some controversy. After the beginning of the Iraq War, he revised his prediction of the "downfall of the US-Empire", seeing it as more imminent.[18] He claims the U.S. will go through a phase as a fascist dictatorship on its path down, and that the Patriot Act is a symptom of this. He claims the election of George W. Bush cost the U.S. empire five years - although he admits that this estimate was set a bit arbitrarily. He now sets the date for the end of the American Empire at 2020, but not the American Republic. Like Great Britain, Russia and France, he says the American Republic will be better off without the Empire.
Galtung has made predictions which have failed to materialize. For example, City Journal claims that in 1953, Galtung predicted that the Soviet Union's economy would soon overtake the West.[19]
In a 2007 article in the City Journal magazine and a subsequent article in February 2009 by Barbara Kay in the National Post, a number of criticisms were made of Galtung and Peace Studies. Specific allegations included:
For Johan Galtung, the U.S. is simultaneously a republic and an empire, a distinction he believes is highly relevant. The U.S. is on the one hand loved for its republican qualities, and on the other loathed by its enemies abroad for its perceived military aggressions.
Among the former qualities are its work ethic and dynamism, productivity and creativity, the idea of freedom, or liberty, and a pioneering spirit. On the other hand its military and political manipulation are censured for their aggressiveness, arrogance, violence, hypocrisy and self-righteousness, as well as the US public ignorance of other cultures and extreme materialism.[23]
In an article published in 2004 in Galtung predicted that the US Empire will "decline and fall" by 2020." A complex hypothesis he has developed into a prognosis expanded on in his 2009 book titled The Fall of the US Empire - and Then What? Successors, Regionalization or Globalization? US Fascism or US Blossoming?[24][25]
According to Galtung, the US Empire causes "unbearable suffering and resentment" because the "exploiters/ killers/ dominators/ alienators, and those who support the US Empire because of perceived benefits" are engaging in "unequal, non-sustainable, exchange patterns." However, Galtung added that the decline of the US Empire does not imply a fall and decline of the US republic and that the "relief from the burden of Empire control and maintenance...could lead to a blossoming of the US Republic." In the Article, Galtung lists fourteen 'contradictions' that, he believes, in the next fifteen years, in 2020, will cause the 'decline and fall' of the American empire.[25]
Commenting further on these views on the radio and television program Democracy Now, he stated that he loved the American Republic and hated the American Empire. He added that many Americans had thanked him for this statement (on his lecture tours) because of the great difficulty they were having in trying to resolve the conflict between their love for their country and their displeasure with its foreign policy.[26]