Description
This paper seeks to determine whether Peace Studies is currently experiencing a paradigmatic crisis and, if so, how such a crisis can be recognized and understood. Rather than assuming its existence, the research interrogates how the epistemological and institutional dynamics of the field reflect, refract, or resist the global polycrisis that characterizes the contemporary world. The central premise is that the state of the “external” world – marked by escalating nuclear threats, renewed geopolitical rivalries, accelerating climate deterioration, rising biological and public health risks, technological disruptions, and economic instability – cannot be separated from the “internal” world of Peace Studies, where its core concepts, methods, and purposes appear increasingly changing. To analyze this relationship, the study draws on Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions, particularly his notion of crisis as a moment of paradigmatic instability preceding intellectual transformation. It also reflects on the epistemological implications of identifying a crisis, arguing that such a task requires rethinking the criteria of legitimacy and evaluation within the field, as well as the methodological tools used to study it. In this sense, Peace Studies is approached not merely as an object of analysis but as a living, reflexive discipline that interacts continuously with the historical and global challenges it seeks to address. Ultimately, the research considers whether the field is facing a Kuhnian crisis, not as a symptom of decline, but as an opportunity for paradigmatic renewal and the reaffirmation of its relevance in an increasingly complex and interdependent world.
