Strategies for waging peace: A critique of Jimmy Carter's rhetoric of human rights, democracy, and mediation.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Despite the fact that the great majority of people in the world believe in peace, human history has been characterized by conflict. Typically, people tend to think of peace as an absence of war, but such a negative definition inhibits examination of the ways to promote peace. However, by conceptualizing peace as employing strategies to help manage conflict and erecting new perspectives that do not include warring parties, we can better study and understand ways to encourage peace. This dissertation examines Jimmy Carter's attempts to promote peace by protecting human rights, encouraging democratization, and mediating in crisis situations. In doing so, I assess the evolution of Carter's strategies, their effectiveness, and reasons for his success or failure. Though some of Carter's early efforts to promote peace were politically inspired and ineffectual, he has developed an impressive ability to erect a comic corrective at key times and help people avoid scapegoating, which has lead to peace.