This volume emerged from a conference on “Order, Conflict, and Violence” held at Yale in May of 2004. It is one of a series of books to come out of the Yale Political Science Initiative on “Rethinking Political Order.” Other volumes resulting from the Initiative are Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics, edited by Ian Shapiro, Rogers Smith, and Tarek Masoud (Cambridge University Press 2004); Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State, edited by Ian Shapiro, Stephen Skowronek, and Daniel Galvin (New York University Press 2006); Identities, Affiliations, and Allegiances, edited by Seyla Benhabib, Ian Shapiro, and Danilo Petranovich (Cambridge University Press 2007); Political Contingency: Studying the Unexpected, the Accidental, and the Unforeseen, edited by Ian Shapiro and Sonu Bedi (New York University Press 2007); Divide and Deal: The Politics of Distribution in Democracies, edited by Ian Shapiro, Peter Swenson, and Daniela Donno (New York University Press 2008); and Representation and Popular Rule, edited by Ian Shapiro, Susan Stokes, Elisabeth Wood, and Alexander Kirshner (in press).

We are pleased to record our gratitude to Yale University for the financial support that has made this initiative possible. Thanks are due to Sage Publications for permission to reprint Courtney Jung, Ellen Lust-Okar, and Ian Shapiro's essay, “Problems and Prospects for Democratic Settlements: South Africa as a Model for the Middle East and Northern Ireland?” which first appeared in Politics and Society 33:2 (June 2005), in the present volume.