Katharina Felgenhauer - New School Economic Review.pdfVIP

New School Economic Review, Volume 2(1), 2007, 38-48 PEACE ECONOMICS: PRIVATE SECTOR BUSINESS INVOLVEMENT IN CONFLICT PREVENTION Katharina Felgenhauer ABSTRACT Conflict prevention has escaped pure state responsibility and needs to involve a wide range of societal actors, including business. The private sector, especially multinational corporations, can powerfully contribute to comprehensive peace building and derive profit from doing so. However, profit-oriented behavior can also endanger peace, unless the economic incentive structure induces conflict preventing business strategies. Yet, such ideal scenario requires commitment from the state, the civil society and the companies themselves. I INTRODUCTION Our world has long moved beyond the Westphalian system of international relations; matters of peace and war have evolved as well. Currently the civil population plays a more important role as actors, instruments, and victims (Nelson 2000). Congruently, conflict prevention and peace-making escaped pure state responsibility and need to address society as a whole through involving a wide range of interdependent actors. Peace, it appears, can only be sustained if carried by maj orities among all stakeholders and mainstreamed within all parts of society. In order to attain sustainable peace traditional first-track diplomacy of formal governmental negotiation must be complemented by the inclusion of various social actors. John McDonald and Louise Diamond elaborate further distinctions of diplomatic efforts emerging within the civil society, among them track three: the involvement of business through private sector economic activities aimed at preventing conflicts (Diamo