Preface
| DOI | 10.1177/002234338201900202 |
| Date | 01 June 1982 |
| Published date | 01 June 1982 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
101
Preface
In
the
Summer
of
1981,
the
editors
of the
Journal
of
Peace
Research
started
planning
a
special
issue
on
Poland.
Developments
in
that
country
were
then
followed
with
great
interest
and
anxiety
throughout
Europe
and
the
rest
of
the
world.
We
felt
that
the
Journal,
as
a
leading
scholarly
quarterly
of
the
peace
and
conflict
research
community,
ought
to
take
a
special
interest
in
the
evolu-
tion
of
events
and
the
political
transforma-
tion
in
Poland,
from
a
perspective
which
is
prominently
if
not
exclusively
that
of
peace
research.
To
what
extent,
in
which
forms
and
by
what
strategy
may
a
society,
under
the
con-
straints
operating
in
the
case
of
Poland,
transform
its
political
and
economic
in-
stitutions
by
social
forces
of
its
own
and
in
a
non-violent
way?
In
other
words,
what
were
the
possibilities
and
the
limits
of
Solidarity’s
path,
to
some
a
very
important
experiment
in
societal
transformation,
to
others
a
revo-
lutionary
break
with
the
past
with
poten-
tially
far-reaching
implications.
Our
planning
led
us
into
contact
with
a
Polish
sociologist,
Andrzej
Kutylowski,
who
came
to
Oslo
to
attend
the
Peace
Research
course
at
the
Summer
School
of
Oslo
Uni-
versity.
Early
December
1981
he
returned
to
the
International
Peace
Research
Institute
as
a
visiting
researcher,
bringing
with
him
a
number
of
papers
prepared
by
Polish
social
scientists
during
1980-81.
Then
events
in
Poland
itself
overtook
us,
but
did
not
basi-
cally
change
our
planning
of
the
special
issue.
Developments
after
December
13,
1981
only
further
stressed
the
importance
of
presenting
a
first-hand
account
and
drawing
lessons
from
the
Polish
experiment.
This
is
briefly
the
history
and
the
purpose
of
the
present
issue.
The
editors
of
the
Journal
offer
its
columns
to
an
applied
social
science
appraisal
of the
1980-81
movement
for
renewal
in
Poland.
By
doing
so,
we
do
not
necessarily
condone
all
and
every
point
of
view
expressed
by
our
Polish
colleagues.
We
do
wish,
however,
to
bring
to
the
attention
of
an
international
audience
such
as
that
of
the
Journal’s
readers,
the
line
of
thinking
of
concerned
Polish
social
scientists
about
the
Polish
drama.
We
wish
to
present
their
own
,account
of
what
they
attempted
to
achieve.
We
thereby
express
our
solidarity
with
the
fate
of
those
colleagues
who
for
reasons
of
conviction
and
doubtless
intellectual
persua-
sion,
brought
social
science
to
the forefront
of
what
we
have
chosen
to
term
the
’Polish
breakthrough
1980-81’.
For
reasons
which
will
be
understood,
the
edictors
of
this
journal
have
taken
unusual
responsibility
in
editing
the
papers
without
having
the
possibility
of
communicating
with
the
authors.
To
our
knowledge,
four
out
of
the
seven
contributors
are
still
interned
in
Poland
(April
1982).
Andrzej
Kutylowski
has
taken
on
himself
the
duties
of
guest
edi-
tor
of
the
issue.
Hdkan
Wiberg
has acted
on
behalf
of
the
editorial
committee
as
co-
editor.
Both
have
made
a
special
effort
to
prepare
this
issue
for
publication.
An
editorial
comment
on
the Polish
situa-
tion
was
published
in
the
last
issue
of
the
Journal,
No.
1
1982.
We
are
keeping
up
with
our
policy
of
focusing
on
current
pro-
blems
of
international
concern
in
the
pres-
ent
issue
by
bringing
a
comment
on
El
Sal-
vador
and
the
Central
American
conflict
arena,
written
by
two
authors
specially
in-
vited
by
the
editors.
We
believe
that
a
com-
ment
on
the
events
in
Central
America
at
this
moment
is
not out
of
context
when
appearing
in
a
special
issue
on
Poland.
On
the
contrary,
some
common
denominators
would
seem
all
too
obvious.
The
Editor
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