ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on academic peace and conflict theory. Although theorists often state that businesses have a role to play in creating local-level conditions of peace, they rarely go into any detail about how that should happen due to disciplinary boundaries. The chapter focuses on the roles and responsibilities of state and non-state actors in making financial contribution to peace. The conceptual Peace Theory framework developed by Oliver Richmond is only one of a number created by scholars to describe the history and the development of several generations of Peace Theory. In circumstances of weak government and poorly resourced development organisations, a common observation by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) professionals is that Natural Resources Companies (NRC) are pressured to assume the role of the state or a development agency. NRCs are well placed and active as non-state actors with the capacity to engage the paradigm of positive peace as a foundation for their CSR strategies.
