Rethinking Galtung’s Key Concepts: A Deliberative Agential Approach to Deep Positive Peace

Abstract Current peace and conflict studies typically overlook the deep-rooted social identity dynamics underlying intra-state armed conflict. This article addresses that gap by proposing a novel deep positive peace concept as the transformation of exclusionary social identity perceptions. Informed by horizontal inequalities (HIs) thesis, social identity theory, and realist social theory, it underscores the role of agents’ social identity in shaping collective beliefs and social practices. It thereby advances our understanding of the deep-rooted dynamics of the (re)production and potentially transformation of HIs, and hierarchical relationships and structures. The article shows that incorporating the neglected social identity and agential lenses can supplement Galtung’s structural violence, positive peace, and peacebuilding concepts, which are premised on the structural aspects of the agent–structure problem in social theory. It argues for an agential approach aimed at transforming exclusionary social identity perceptions as the deep-rooted drivers of structural violence (HIs), hierarchical structures, and intra-state armed conflict. It also shows how the proposed deliberative agential approach moves beyond post-conflict dialogical and institutionalist (structural) approaches and thereby supplements current peacebuilding and conflict transformation conceptualizations and practices.