The application of peace research to settings of violent conflict requires careful attention to the ethical dimensions of scholarship; yet, discussions about the ethics of peace research remain underdeveloped. This article addresses a critical gap in the literature, outlining a framework for ethical peace research broadly encompassed in three guiding principles: responsibility, reciprocity and reflexivity. The first section provides an overview of the ethics of peace action and research, introducing key contributions that practitioner-scholars have made to the ethics of peacebuilding. In the second section, I explore how the guiding principles of reflexivity, responsibility and reciprocity offer a flexible framework for engaging in everyday ethical research practices. I conclude with preliminary recommendations to encourage further conversation about the ethics of peace research, offering ideas for future action.

In less than two decades, security sector reform (SSR) has crystallized as an organizing framework guiding international engagement in countries affected by violent conflict. SSR is a normative proposition, grounded in democratic governance and human security, and a concrete set of practices. As such, it represents an exemplary case of the dialectic between scholarship and practice and an outstanding vantage point from which to interrogate this nexus. In this article, I explore the dynamic interplay between theory and practice in SSR. In particular, I show how the basic tenets of conflict transformation – present in the first generation of scholarship on SSR – were sidelined in SSR practices. Practical experiences led to strong critiques of the ‘conceptual-contextual’ divide and, eventually, to a second generation of critical scholarship on SSR that has begun to coalesce. I conclude by noting the parallels between recent scholarship on SSR and the insights captured in earlier work on conflict transformation.

Love and Stulberg critically discuss policy, scholarly, and practice developments in four areas of program development in the area historically referenced as alternative dispute resolution (ADR): the range of process options; the impact of court procedures on ADR program development and practice; the nature of ADR scholarship and training; and the general public's receptiveness to or rejection of the normative principles that structure ADR collaborative processes. Their concluding remarks suggest that the promise of ADR, particularly of the mediation process, remains inspiring to many, even if its effective implementation remains uneven.

Transformative mediation is an approach to third party intervention that has been implemented in a range of dispute settings over the past twenty years. This article offers an explanation of what led us to develop the transformative model of mediation, and an assessment of the body of work related to both the theory and practice of transformative mediation. Specifically, we offer an assessment of: how well the relational premises of the model have been articulated, whether transformative practice remained aligned with its underlying premises, what the impact of practice has been, and what effect this approach to conflict intervention has had on the discourse of the conflict field in general.