TITLE:  The Pathology of Peace

The polarization of human communities is perhaps the most readily recognized condition in the science of politics; it directly challenges the “first law” of political science: “united we stand; divided we fall.” As has long been demonstrated, man’s hubris has led him to believe that, through the exercise of coercive power, he becomes the master of his fate. As a result, war has plagued humanity since long before the inception of modern civilization. In fact, “civilization” has served to increase man’s destructive “power” to the point where it threatens the very existence of both civility and humanity on earth.

The science of political behavior has emerged only recently, enabled by the advent of computation science and its application to advances in informational science. Knowledge can, and will, set us free from the scourge, or social pathology, of war.  Knowledge and understanding make “peace possible.”

BIO:

Dr. Monty G. Marshall is a macro-comparative and political behavioral researcher, theorist, analyst, and consultant specializing in complex societal-systems analytics, examining the critical nexus among societal and systemic conflict, governance, and development dynamics with emphasis on the problem of political violence. He has directed the Center for Systemic Peace (systemicpeace.org) since 1997 which produces data informatics on conflict, governance, and development for 168 countries in the world: supported data resources include the Polity5, Minorities at Risk, Major Episodes of Political Violence, State Fragility, Coups, Electoral Boycotts, and Executive and Party Structures public datasets. He was a full-time subcontractor and consultant providing key data and analytics in support of the global conflict forecasting efforts of the US Government’s Political Instability Task Force for over twenty years (1998-2020); he holds degrees from the Universities of Colorado, Maryland, and Iowa (University Fellowship) and has held academic positions at the Universities of South Florida, Maryland and George Mason, In 2010, he established an independent think tank, Societal-Systems Research Inc. Publications include the book Third World War, the Peace and Conflict and Global Report serials, and a two-volume video book: Managing Complexity in Modern Societal-Systems. Recent publications include “Measurement of Political Conflict” (2026); “Societal-System Analytics and the Problem of Factionalism in Emerging (and Declining) Democracies” (2023); and “Hybrid Authority Systems and Instability” (2023).

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