Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen Heft 32
Sabine Rousseau: Peace Movements in France since 1945
A subject of enquiry under construction
Historical studies about the peace movements in France since 1945 are still scarce. Three distinctive
approaches do exist. One approach that is rather concerned with identity-politics
than with scientific research is basically including studies about a minority of militant advocates
of non-violent peace action: biographies that are conceived as role models (Gandhi,
Martin Luther King), and essays contributing to a substantially militant output. Monographs
about the way the great mass organisations worked, which emerged during the Cold
War era (Mouvement de la paix, Pax Christi), account for the second approach. The privileged
source material of this approach are the reports of the executive groups of these movements,
which are related to an external body of decision making: The Communist Party
Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen / Heft 32 (2004) S. 225–228
(PCF) in the first case, the Catholic Church in the second one. Thirdly, there are studies
about those concerted actions directed against wars of decolonialisation and wars on the periphery
of the Cold War (Indochina War, Algerian War, Vietnam War). This strand of research
is aiming to identify and characterise different forms and types of dedication and activity
which were converging in the social movements of the 1950s and 1960s.