Abstract for: Critical ontology of war, for realistic peacebuilding

The current orthodoxy in the ontology of violence and war fragments our understanding of human instrumental use of violence. This is an analytical obstacle that hampers both macro-level explanations and predictions of war, as well as effective strategy design in individual conflicts. This presentation uses complex systems thinking to reframe the generalizable function of violence in the context of the polity (a generalizable political entity). The resulting Polity Model is an informal model that provides a framework for both explaining and predicting macrotrends concerning war and violence, as well as strategy design in individual conflicts. The presentation highlights conclusions from the model that is supported by empirical observations. At the macro-level, the model fits with the 2010 inflection point of stagnating global negative and positive peace. The model also predicts empirical patterns concerning effective peace operations during the last decades. Lastly, the presentation demonstrates how the Polity Model an analytical core that can be extrapolated to higher and more aggregate levels of analysis. This can drive strategy design in peacebuilding operations that allows for actionable understanding of complexity.