Peace Psychology and the Deadly Competition Between Democracy and Dictatorship

摘要

Many researching and practicing peace psychologists see it as essential to approach their work in a neutral and unbiased manner. This often means systematically taking steps to set aside prejudgments and biases, particularly political ones. In terms of scientific practices as well, objectivity and neutrality are a high priority. During my years as Director of the Georgetown Conflict Resolution Program, in line with many other conflict resolution programs around the world, we trained students to be as objective as possible in the process of conflict transformation. But there are times when such an objective and neutral approach will be inadequate, and the most important and consequential contemporary example of this is probably the deadly global competition gaining increasing momentum between democracy and dictatorship.