From scholarly dialogue to social movement: Considerations and implications for peace through commerce

While Peace through Commerce (PTC) started as a conversation among a small group of scholars it has grown into an increasingly robust movement, giving rise to conferences, books, journal articles, and dialogue between scholars, managers, practitioners, government officials, and civil society actors, all of whom share an interest in the potential of commerce to foster greater peace. Because social movement scholarship explores the ability of collective interests to achieve social change it provides a useful lens through which to consider PTC's maturation and, more broadly, the rise of scholarly conversations into social movements its. Increasingly, social movement theory has been used to describe and better understand a diverse range of social and organizational changes (Strang and Il Jung, 2005) including academic endeavors (Hambrick and Chen, 2008). I draw on social movement theory to characterize the rise of PTC and to consider its future growth. I also suggest broader implications for the transition of academic dialogue as it attains movement status.