In his target article, Glowacki provides a detailed discussion of dynamics of conflict emergence and mechanisms for conflict resolution within and between small-scale nonstate societies. The analytical angle he chooses for his account is progressive: Instead of searching for causes of conflict in either the relations between groups, for example, their competition for dominance in a given region, or in their shared environment, for example, food scarcity caused by climatic instabilities, Glowacki takes a detailed look at drivers of conflict within societies themselves.

Thus, instead of treating groups as monadic units with potentially clashing interests between them but internally aligned goal functions, Glowacki breaks groups down into several classes of individuals, each with agendas of their own. This approach obviously complicates the analysis. However, as demonstrated in the target article, it also facilitates new insights. Our understanding of large-scale modern-day conflicts has benefited a lot from similar analytical refinements – see for example, Esteban, Morelli, and Rohner (Reference Esteban, Morelli and Rohner2015); Esteban and Ray (Reference Esteban and Ray2011); for an overview, see Rusch (Reference Rusch2022). Moreover, within the domain of microlevel research on individuals’ conflict behavior the study of heterogeneous incentives within groups has also gained traction – see for example, for humans: Doğan, Glowacki, and Rusch (Reference Doğan, Glowacki and Rusch2018); Herbst, Konrad, and Morath (Reference Herbst, Konrad and Morath2015); Kölle (Reference Kölle2022); Konrad and Morath (Reference Konrad and Morath2022); and for nonhuman animals: Johnstone, Cant, Cram, and Thompson (Reference Johnstone, Cant, Cram and Thompson2020); Radford (Reference Radford2011).

The key troublemakers Glowacki identifies in the societies he discusses are young men. In his account, these benefit quite directly from the raids they organize, often without the consent of their group, while not having to fear high direct costs thanks to the stealth and surprise tactics they employ. However, the attacks carried out by a few raiders then have detrimental consequences for their groups at large, as retributive strikes are carried out by out-group avengers indiscriminately against all members of the raiders’ group. In essence, this is a situation of privatized benefits for those thrill-seeking violent young men and socialized costs borne by their entire group. Theoretically, thus, those who suffer from these externalities should be willing to take action against the raiders within their own group as long as the costs of such “policing” are smaller than the losses incurred due to raiding. In short: There can be positive incentives to “police for peace.”

Indeed, Glowacki describes such behavior: The existence of norms against raiding and their enforcement via sanctions in some societies fit very well with this reasoning. Moreover, supporting the structural argument, civil police forces take over important roles in peacekeeping also today – see, for example, Greener (Reference Greener2011) and Mailhot, Kriner, and Karim (Reference Mailhot, Kriner and Karim2022). However, policing for peace faces several obstacles. For one, violent young men are difficult to police, a problem that has not been solved well in contemporary state societies either – see, for example, Freeman (Reference Freeman1996). Where policing is too costly, thus, it might in fact be better, from a group-level collective perspective, to let this subgroup's aggressive potential be acted out as violence against out-groups compared to letting it manifest internally – a logic also found in modern warfare, see, for example, McKay (Reference McKay2021). Second, while policing for peace might prevent detrimental spirals of aggression and counteraggression from unfolding between groups, it is, of course, subject to the same dilemmatic logic like peacekeeping more generally. It is likely worth the costs only in case the respective out-groups go along and manage to curb their male youth as well.

Some support for this view comes from Glowacki's observation that contact with states often had pacifying effects on previously feuding small-scale societies. Representatives of these states might have introduced and enforced exactly that type of policing which endogenously could not be established due to the mentioned dilemma. This, however, also raises the question of how those states themselves, or their predecessors, initially managed to resolve the policing dilemma, of course. Glowacki's target article leaves this question unanswered and, given the lack of robust evidence available to answer it, this is wise. Nonetheless, at least one developmental scenario occurs as deserving some more thought to me, that of the “peacelord.”

Picking up Glowacki's dissecting approach, the young men of a society are not a homogeneous mass themselves. They have an internal hierarchy, too. The individual at the top of this hierarchy, their “leader,” likely has some degree of control over those in lower ranks, see Glowacki and McDermott (Reference Glowacki and McDermott2022) and Glowacki and von Rueden (Reference Glowacki and von Rueden2015). A diplomatically talented leader, thus, could capitalize on this by playing a dual role: He could police “his men” to avoid uncontrolled outbreaks of violence, thus acting as a “peacelord.” Simultaneously, he could steer his followers’ aggressive potential in ways balancing their demand for “thrill” with the interests of his group at large, thus acting as a “principled warlord.” Of course, such balancing still requires occasional conflicts with selected out-groups. Their overall consequences might be less devastating relative to uncontrolled all-out war, though.

I would expect that reliable evidence for the “peacelord” scenario will be hard to come by. Nonetheless, at least some first plausibility maybe be conferred to it from observations collected by Blattman, Duncan, Lessing, and Tobón (Reference Blattman, Duncan, Lessing and Tobón2021): In their analysis of organized crime in the Colombian city of Medellín they find, initially quite counterintuitively, that gang rule can be as effective as state rule in the production of stability and protection for citizens there. Structurally, thus, their observations are well aligned with the “peacelord” idea. In the absence of effective law enforcement, young men endogenously organize into gangs which enforce their monopoly on violence within their territories, thus creating a degree of public safety. Between gangs and larger strategic alliances of such, on the contrary, episodes of violence alternate with phases of “power balance” and relative tranquility. On a structural level, thus, Blattman and colleagues report patterns with striking similarities to those described by Glowacki for small-scale societies.