ABSTRACT
In Great Britain, the Research Assessment Exercise has been a particularly salient feature of the academic process. John Burton had earlier explored the relationship between International Relations and Peace Research. David Singer straddled the divide between the two, contributing to the empirical content of both but clearly playing a pioneering role in Peace Research. It is interesting to note the journal 'Peace and Change', for it too was a relative latecomer in the field, with a clear aim to explain its existence. It sought to invest Peace Research with an historical dimension and was, perhaps, also a response to the influence of empiricism in North America. The core around which much of the work done in the United States coheres nowadays is a combination of world order studies, peace and justice studies and conflict resolution. It is hard to sustain the view that is a degree of lack of discipline; 'anything goes' is not acceptable now, if it ever was.
