Marketing an End to War: Constructive Engagement, Community Wellbeing, and Sustainable Peace

Abstract

Markets and marketing are integral to human welfare and survival. When used however for the purposes of war and other systemically violent conflict, they can be devastating and pose an existential threat to humanity. Drawing on experience in war-ravaged and recovering economies, the author examines a stream of research on marketing systems disrupted or destroyed by war. Some underlying conditions and predictors of war and its peaceful resolution are introduced, including social traps and their mitigation or elimination. An argument is revisited for marketing as a form of constructive engagement, which must be implemented to affect and to develop equitable and sustainable marketing systems, flourishing communities, societal wellbeing and sustainable peace. The article concludes with some considerations for further research.

The Global Refugee Crisis: Pathway for a More Humanitarian Solution

“…Layton and Duffy (2018), for example, have noted the significance of “jolting” a system, which can require a fresh start to the extant system or perhaps entirely new systems (p. 401). War – its systemic, human destruction – is such a jolt, requiring constructive engagement to replace, repair and integrate systems, some of which may not have been required or even desired prior to the devastation (Shultz 2016). This in turn leads to a path dependency (Layton and Duffy 2018) – truly, a life-support system – unfamiliar to FDP, in the form of a Refugee Pathway and ideally a more Humanitarian Marketing System, which we articulate, below, including some initiatives and resources of catalytic institutions that ensure safe passage and resettlement.…”

“…Layton 2015). Fourth, crisis mitigation does not necessarily require new/more theory or perseverations pertaining to it; mitigation does require constructive engagement, now , leveraging ideas and tools familiar to macromarketing scholars, but apparently unfamiliar or not compelling to key actors in catalytic institutions well-positioned to apply them (e.g., Shultz 2016). This more constructive, adaptive and humanitarian approach provides a systemic schema to understand refugee needs and possible solutions along their pathway.…”

Gross National Happiness (GNH)

“…Even factors such as non-consumption, delayed gratification, ‘small is better’ milieus and the rationed use of resources also can contribute to the QoL (Kilbourne, McDonagh and Prothero 1997). Shultz (2016) makes a case that community well-being cannot be easily separated from the notion of healthy market system development and that they must be addressed in tandem, even as they remain distinct concepts.…”

A Journal for a Fast-Changing World

“…In his article titled "Marketing an End to War: Constructive Engagement, Community Wellbeing, and Sustainable Peace", Shultz argues that when used for the purposes of war, marketing may potentially have devastating effects. Whereas, he argues, marketing can be a form of constructive engagement, and it must be deployed in ways that develop equitable and sustainable markets and increase social wellbeing and peace (Shultz 2016).…”