Peace

Johan Galtung, TRANSCEND Peace University

Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Peace is seen as a transnational, transdisciplinary, and translevel – from inner peace to civilizations – concept. There are two
aspects: negative peace as absence of violence, and positive peace as cooperation and harmony. A formula is presented based
on equity and harmony for positive peace, and reconciliation of traumas and resolution of conflicts to avoid violence for
negative peace.

Summary and Overview negative peace as absence of violence; the latter not only as
absence of direct, intended violence, acts of commission, but
The point of departure for peace is the broad, basic suffering also of indirect structural violence by acts of omission, and by
fulfillment distinction, for all life. The double task of peace is to cultural violence, justifying one or the other. Peace is incom-
reduce the suffering by violence – negative peace – and increase patible with massive, lethal, and social inequality – like health
the fulfillment – positive peace. The two can be pursued is incompatible with tumors and circulation problems with no
together. overt pain or fever. Both are ideals, sums of all good things.
One basic diagnosis for violence is underlying, unresolved Definitions should serve thought, speech, and indicate
conflicts at present, simple, complex, or structural (see Johan action. This formula defines peace operationally, in terms of four
Galtung, A Theory of Conflict, TRANSCEND University Press, tasks (the formula logic is structural peace – equitable cooper-
2010; Parts Two, Three, and Four respectively). The parties are ation – and cultural peace – empathic harmony knowing and
coupled; the task is to change this coupling from incompati- feeling the reality of other – threatened by direct violence from
bility to compatibility of goals, or to no coupling at all. unreconciled trauma and unsolved conflicts. For more details,
Another basic diagnosis for violence is unconciliated see Johan Galtung, A Theory of Peace, TRANSCEND University
traumas from the past, inflicted by the parties in the coupling, or Press, 2013, Part One. For more about the formula, see Johan
by some other party. The task is to clear the past, closure, and Galtung and Dietrich Fischer, Peace Mathematics, TRANSCEND
create a future together. But reconciliation should not serve as University Press, 2012, pp. 28–32.):
a pretext to neglect the conflict resolution job lest it becomes Equity Harmony
pacification. Peace ¼
Trauma Conflict
In addition, there is the equity job to take care of, for not
only mutual, but not too unequal fulfillment, harmony, and The formula applies across time, space, level, from peace
emotional resonance. But these two positive peace tasks may with nature, and inner peace to, for some, peace with their God.
come to nothing if traumas and conflicts are not adequately Needless to say, no academic discipline, or civilization, has any
handled. monopoly on ‘peace.’
Peace politics is the transformation from direct and struc- There are two factors in the numerator: the more the better;
tural violence to negative and positive peace by peaceful and two in the denominator leading to violence, the less the
means. Nonviolent struggle, mediation, and reconciliation can better. The definition relates to the reality of peace, not to
be substituted for war, guerilla-terrorism, and negotiation to literature about peace and is operational, neither semantic, nor
win. The goals are negative and positive peace, working on ‘essentialist.’
both together, not one after the other. The four factors or tasks can be spelt out:
That opens for four stages beyond negative peace: symbi- 1. More equity: cooperative behavior for mutual and equal
osis, transcendence, synthesis, and absorption. How far we benefit
want to go depends on the concrete case, but as a minimum 2. More harmony: empathic attitudes of emotional resonance,
there should be some project, some peace construction, with in the daoist sense of enjoying the joy, and suffer the
cooperation for mutual and equal benefit and harmony, attitu- suffering, of other
dinal resonance. Transcendence and synthesis may come when 3. Less trauma: reconciliation, clearing the past, acknowledging
old identities are waning and the capacity to handle equity and wrongs, wishing them undone, and dialogs to create
new conflicts is waxing. Peace is a never-ending process. a future together
4. Less conflict: resolution, acceptable and sustainable, making
incompatible goals compatible, and changing negative
What Is Peace? An Operational Definition attitudes and behavior

Peace cuts across history, geography, and levels of human Using marriage as an example, parity and empathy are basic,
organization; from inner and interpersonal peace via states and but unreconciled traumas from the past and unresolved
nations to regional and civilizational relations. Definitions conflicts may cause verbal or physical violence and cannot be
should reflect positive peace as cooperation and harmony, and left unattended.

618 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 17 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.96019-7
Peace 619

Political examples of the four tasks carried out successfully: doing well and the other doing badly is typical of structural
Equity: the 1950–58–92 French–German, then as European violence. Neither fulfilling each other, nor inflicting suffering,
Economic Community (EEC), then as European Union (EU), is typical of negative peace: there is passive peaceful coexis-
European cooperation on reasonably equal terms; now (2013) tence, neither violence, nor positive peace; mutual irrelevance.
threatened by the economic inequality between Germany and Peace politics can be seen as intended efforts to reduce direct
the EU periphery; and structural violence for negative peace – not accepting
Harmony: the feminist revolution has made many men exploitation of one by the other as ‘peace’ even if there is no
understand how the man–woman divide or fault line looks verbal or physical violence – moving on to positive peace with
from a woman’s point of view; women being familiar with the ever more cooperation for mutual and equal benefit, and more
prejudices associated with patriarchy. empathy for harmony; feeling each other’s suffering and
Reconciliation: the South African Truth and Reconciliation fulfillment as parts of one’s own. Two traps on the way:
Commission exchanging confession of political crimes (and ignoring exploitation and repression as justified by cultural
contrition and compensation, if possible) for amnesty. violence – economic and cultural powers are seen as ‘soft
Resolution: black–white relations in the United States, power’ – and being satisfied with the negative peace of mutual
moving toward racial equality of opportunity. irrelevance. (Mutual isolation is problematic in a globalizing
How good EU is at the other three is now being tested; the world with the means of transportation–communication
same applies to the feminist revolution, race in South Africa reaching every corner of the world; sometimes as means of
and the United States. Peace as defined operationally by the structural violence like means of destruction are the means of
formula is a demanding agenda. direct violence; as important in human history as Marx’ means
Major insights in how to are provided by worldviews, reli- of production.) If past traumas and present conflicts are not
gion, and philosophy, but they are not unproblematic. Thus, mediated, negative peace will be lost, and unless the coupling is
reconciliation in South Africa built on the Zulu ubuntu, “I exist not equitable and harmonious, there will be no positive peace,
because you exist, we are in each other,” defining a strong and sooner or later acts of violence.
spiritual coupling in a we-culture. The unit of suffering and joy is
a we, not two separate, parallel I’s; problematic to an individ-
ualistic West that may prefer negative peace to being coupled Peace and Related Concepts
together in positive peace.
Compare this to the Golden Rule, positive (or negative): Security stands for the absence of direct violence, the threat
Do (do not) unto others what you (do not) like them to do unto thereof, and absence of efforts to change the ‘normal’ interac-
you. The subject for violence avoidance and peace is an indi- tion and division of labor between persons and between states.
vidual “you”; the ethical budget is egocentric I-culture, not Security stands for stability, status quo, law and order; generally
collective we-culture. In addition, be careful: “their tastes may favored by those who benefit from that concept. Positive peace
be different” (GB Shaw). with equity is too revolutionary, standing both for equality and
The same applies to the Kantian categorical imperative: “Act so a togetherness close to fusion, like in a good marriage or
that the principle of your intention always could serve as the basis community. Absence of positive peace opens for freedom, for
for world law” (be generalizable, universalizable). This is a traffic exploitation, and for freedom to exploit.
rule for coexistence: Kant wanted a multilateral normative The Japanese concept of kyosei (see Yoichiro Murakami and
umbrella, not only Golden Rule bilateralism. Both are useful rules Thomas J. Schoenbaum (eds.) A Grand Design for Peace and
for positive coexistence in an I-culture, but do not produce the Reconciliation: Achieving Kyosei in East Asia. Cheltenham, UK,
resonance of a we-culture. Or Mo Tzu’s universal love as opposed and North Hampton, Massachusetts, USA: Edward Elgar,
to partiality, (Mo Tzu (one of the ‘hundred philosophers’ 2008), conviviality, comes closer to positive peace with less
551–233 BC) argues universal love, also of one’s enemies, as emphasis on equity; mutual fulfillment, but not necessarily
opposed to the partial love only of one’s friends. The rulers must equally much fulfillment. There is much of that in the classical
start: “Now universal love and mutual benefit are both profitable Japanese company; less in concrete Japanese foreign policy,
and easy beyond all measure. The only trouble, as I see it is that no without reconciliation, resolution, and equity.
ruler takes any delight in them. If the rulers really delighted in Article 9 in the constitution, depriving Japan of the right to
them, promoted them with rewards and praise, and prevented offensive war, is compatible with no joint projects like an East
neglect of them with punishments, then I believe that people Asian Community, no harmony, no reconciliation with the
would turn to universal love and mutual benefit as naturally as victims of Japanese imperialism. The preamble mentions trade,
fire turns upward or water turns downward, and nothing in the but Japanese trade is not known for equity. The peace concept
world could stop them.” Mo Tzu, Basic Writings, New York, underlying A9 was only negative.
London: Columbia University Press, 1963, p. 49.) long before Human security is more problematic. ‘Human’ has positive
the universalism of Christianity, Kant, or human rights. connotations, but ‘security’ has the negative connotations
Being well together by fulfilling each other is positive peace; mentioned, including military intervention. ‘National security’
with mutual assured bliss (MAB), as the extreme – an also conveys an image of a hedgehog turning inward with
abstraction found in religious discourses but also in love noninviting quills outward, attending to the inside at the
defined as the union of the unions of body, mind, and spirit. neglect of the excluded outside. But inside seven types of
Inflicting suffering on each other is typical of direct violence and human security may be met: food, health, environment,
war, with the mutual assured destruction (MAD) of the Cold personal, economic, community, and political security. (See,
War nuclear arms race, as the extreme; not an abstraction. One for instance, the Philippine Human Development Report 2005,
620 Peace

p. 5.) However, there is no kyo, con, sym, cocreation with enough. A better balance between individual and collective
others; it comes from the inside and from above. That is where rights is needed for human rights to serve, as they 1 day
‘mutuality and equality’ enters the peace concept, like in the probably will, as a world constitution.
mutual and equal benefit of the Panchshila of Zhou Enlai and Democracy matters, but to the individualist one-person
Nehru, for China–India, in 1954. one-vote focus and majority rule – after debate to win that
The military, extending a violent arm to violent arms: majority – dialog to consensus, more satisfactory to we-
depends on how far the arms reach. If only within the country, cultures, should be added. For world democracy add a
the arms are defensive of Self; if also outside they are offensive, democratic UN without big power veto, and an elected UN
violent to Other. Even if not used the threat of use is direct Peoples’ Assembly with the member states as constituencies.
psychological violence to the mind of Other as fear; and to the Ho’o pono pono is an ingenious Polynesian reconciliation
spirit of both by impeding positive peace. Defensive defense and resolution method, focusing less on perpetrator and victim
neither offends, nor provokes; is neither violence, nor positive and more on the community as the basic victim, unable to
peace, but the negative peace of mutual security. prevent violence because of too many doing nothing. These
Justice is ambiguous, divided into criminal and social justice, acts of omission are identified by the process, and then turned
the former into punitive and restorative, and the latter into into positive acts of commission.
distributive and equitative justice. Depends on what is meant. Thus, there are many peace-related concepts. The purpose of
Under punitive justice an actor is arraigned into court for such exercises is to identify what there is of peace in a concept,
adjudication. If found guilty, punishment, meaning violence, and to identify what is missing; in a never-ending concept
follows. dialog.
Under restorative justice an actor who has broken a law will
be attempted restored to society, for instance through
community work. This concept could be extended to guilty Negative Peace: The Absence of Violence
states, doing ‘world work.’
Under distributive justice the focus is on ‘equality’ as equal A year with one war between states is often seen as a war-year, not
opportunity; no correlation with gender, race, etc.; low counting all the peaceful relations, the days not at war, and the
dispersion of wealth; lifting the social bottom up. All people on both sides not participating. We have become so
contribute to equality. mesmerized by war and blind to the prevalence of peace as
Under equitative justice the focus is on patterns of interaction absence of violence – even if only because of mutual irrelevance
(like parity in marriage) that generate mutual and equal and distance – as the general rule for humans that we do not even
benefit. see it. But such errors keep the lie about innate violence by ‘human
Punitive justice as victor’s justice are continuations of war nature’ alive, giving humans a bad name, and a worse reputation
by legal means; no healing traumas, solving conflicts, and than humans deserve. (The UNESCO Sevilla Declaration is one
building projects. way of doing this, declaring that there is no scientific basis for the
Restorative justice may help reconciliation, solve conflicts, idea that violence-war is innate. Missing in the declaration is the
and open for projects, like inviting Germany into the European idea that there are positive ways of handling trauma and conflict,
Community. may be not innate either, but like war easily learnt.)
Distributive justice will promote equality, which facilitates Unresolved conflict has been identified as a key cause of
dialogue between equals, empathy, nonviolence, equity, and violence, and solution as the remedy. Violence is to hurt and
harmony. harm to the point of incapacitating Other(s); conflict is
Equitative justice: builds peace directly into the structure. incompatibility in the means-ends complexes pursued and
Punitive justice may prolong violent struggle to deny used by the parties. From “Other pursues his goals with his
the other side victor’s justice, and be counterproductive when means and impedes me from doing the same” does not follow
used against nonviolent struggle. The other three may be peace- that “Other stands in my way,” but that “Other’s goals stand in
productive. the way of my goals.” A puzzle in search of a solution, and there
Rule of law is also ambiguous, like the Ten Commandments seem to be five approaches, starting with the violent ones.
strong on forbidding acts of commission, but permissive of acts No. 1, modern war, to win and dictate the solution, is now
of omission, all those doing nothing. This opens for huge waning between states: destructive power is too high and invul-
structural violence justified by cultures weak on prescribing the nerability too low; hence the use of state terrorism, unleashing
good acts of commission. Thus, “Thou shalt not lie” changes destruction on soft targets far away, often unable to hit back.
character when adding “but share generously your truths with No. 2, guerilla, terrorism, to win and dictate the solution, less
others” (as opposed to patents). For world rule through world lethal than state terrorism, takes more time; but the asymmetry
law a more positive, less punitive, rule of law is needed; with seems to favor guerrilla as judged by Viêt Nam (The classical
rewards, not only punishment. Moreover, social ills like slavery exchange when levels 1 and 2 Vietnam war turned into level 3,
and colonialism were not so much outlawed as being over- negotiation between United States and Viêt Nam: “You were
taken by other structures, some of them liberating, others not. never able to beat us in open battle!”, “Correct. But it is
Human rights are better, but to the individualist focus immaterial.” It is worth remembering that at level 2 there is no
peoples’ rights have to be added, like the right of villages to beginning and no end, nor formal declaration of war nor
survive as human habitats, of traditional crafts to survive, and capitulation. That plays in their favor, exhausting Other’s
of clans and tribes to be recognized as juridical persons. The resilience.), Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. It is the continuation of war
right of (some) nations to (some) self-determination is not by informal means.
Peace 621

No. 3, negotiation, is the continuation of war by verbal Positive Peace: The Presence of Cooperation
means, debate, ideally so that the strongest arguments based and Harmony
on data, values, and theory win. There is polarization between
two sides of the table, and winners and losers, like in Nos. 1 Level I: Symbiosis ¼ Equity þ Harmony. There is cooperation for
and 2. mutual and equal benefit, and there is emotional resonance.
No. 4, negative nonviolence, like the multiseason Arab Another term would be active peaceful coexistence, as opposed
spring, is the continuation of war by such nonviolent means as to the passive peaceful coexistence of negative peace.
noncooperation and civil disobedience, with winners and Level II: Transcendence: A new actor is born. The parties are still
losers. As revolt effective, as revolution, changing the system, there, but something new has emerged. In the integration
too shallow, and too negative. language for states they start “talking with one voice,” “having
No. 5, positive nonviolence, conversion, not coercion, a joint foreign and security policy,” etc. The term often used for
bridging polarization (Polarization in “us vs them” glorifies us level I is community, confederation (German: Staatenbund); and
and demonizes, dehumanizes them to objects not protected by for level II the terms are union, federation (German: Bundesstaat).
human empathy with each other. Depolarization is an Transcendence means something above, beyond; among
important part of the work for negative peace, and cooperation states, multistate conferences, a permanent secretariat,
on conflict solving is already a first step for positive peace. The a commission that becomes more than the sum of the actors.
Tajfel–Turner and Tropp–Pettigrew traditions in social The process can be seen as follows:
psychology have much to say about social identity and inter-
1. Negative peace: separate goals, separate means; avoiding
group relations, but less on identifying and mediating conflict
violence.
and trauma.) in dialogue searching together for solutions,
2. Positive peace I: separate goals, shared means-resources.
without or with mediator, mapping the conflict – who are the
3. Positive Peace II: shared goals, shared means-resources.
parties, what are their goals and means – testing the goals for
legitimacy – legal? human rights? basic needs? – and bridging In cohabitation the parties share their resources, but
between legitimate goals, jointly searching for a new reality. It preserve the autonomy of having separate goals. In a marriage
calls for peace education in schools, peace journalism in the they share a goal, building a happy marriage, beyond the sum
media, peace in the arts; like No. 1 calls for training to kill, of the two parties.
militarized universities, No. 2 for camps, etc. That brings us to the next level:
No. 4 for struggle and No. 5 for solutions are normal Level III: Synthesis. Feudal counties, duchies, etc. die; a state
human ways; the others are aberrations, and should be known is born. States gradually die, regions are born. Regions gradu-
as such. (The rest is a question of knowledge and skills. This ally die, a world is born. We are right now living the drama of
author’s contributions are in the two books Transcend & all these processes in different parts of the world.
Transform, 2003, and 50 Years: 100 Peace & Conflict Perspectives, The resources, the means, have already been pooled; the
2008.) goals have been aligned. They are not only compatible, but
Unconciliated trauma; wounds from a conflict, even identical. Out of numerous I-ness’s a new we-ness, of a new
forgotten, have also been identified as cause of violence. Five kind, has emerged. The old actors, like old people, have had
approaches (And the book corresponding to the preceding their days, but the new actors are not like a younger generation
paragraph is Joanna Santa Barbara, Johan Galtung, Diane merely replicating the old; but a transition to a new era in
Perlman, Reconciliation, TRANSCEND University Press, 2012.): human history.
No. 1, revenge according to the classical rule of lex talionis, an Level IV: Fusion, absorption, found in the religious discourses,
eye for an eye, etc., carried out by the victim, or by the state. but often reserved for the beyond, the afterlife, for souls only.
No. 2, displaced aggression, violence in any direction, also The ultimate absorption-union is with God in Christianity and
against self. Violence leads to new trauma leads to violence Islam, with each other in the Hindu nirvana concept, with the
leads to trauma ad inf., like family feuds, vendetta; no end, no network of all life in Buddhism. But the human individual
closure. spirit is capable of level IV without dying, as absorbed, fully
No. 3, negotiation, extracting compensation from the perpe- devoted, in the nation, in the civilization, in humanity; in
trator also in monetary terms. Superficial, but may lead to a marriage with a fusion of partners.
shallow closure. There is ambiguity in positive peace. At levels I and II
No. 4, visibility, “see what you have done to me”; museums, between states, for instance, war has become ‘unthinkable’ if
parks, monuments for traumas already suffered, may lead to the integration manages to handle, constructively, complex
shallow closure. conflicts with high numbers of parties and goals. But that is
No. 5, conciliation, opens for the whole complexity, conscious a huge order. If unable to handle conflicts, the coupling may
and subconscious. If the perpetrator is traumatized by trauma- break up, parties may decouple, hopefully only down to level
tizing the victim, they may have a joint interest in clearing the 0, negative peace, not further down to violence.
past by wishing it undone, working for an acceptable future, and The real crisis may come at level III, let alone level IV. As
for closure. the process proceeds, the identity of the actors is eroding.
No. 5 one way or another is the normal human way; the Thus, for the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to be
other four are aberrations, and should be known as such (see absorbed into Europe, with no identity of their own, will be
Joanna Santa Barbara, Johan Galtung and Diane Perlman, hard, let alone the United States under UN.
Reconciliation: Clearing the Past, Opening the Future, TRAN- The solution lies in seeing the levels less as linear progress,
SCEND University Press, 2012). more as parallel processes. A couple will delight in the union of
622 Peace

unions of body, mind, and spirit as bliss, but find it exhausting 2. Structural violence ¼ Unintended, by structures hurting–
and proceed with one at the time. A political union may be harming (exploitation, repression, and alienation).
needed in crisis, but revert to level I under more normal 3. Cultural violence ¼ by cultures legitimizing either violence.
conditions.
The cultural violence justifies the direct and structural
The levels are modes of coexistence, not life sentences.
violence that causes each other.
Negative peace as mutual assured survival (I am indebted
There are at least eight fault line causes with such effects:
to Diane Perlman for this felicitous term, a common sense
humans/nature, men/women, middle-aged/young/old, white/
between MAB and MAD) is attractive in its simplicity, but
colored, ‘normal’/deviants, high/low class (with four types of
positive peace has much more to offer. Active peaceful coex-
class: economic, military, political, cultural; generally powerful
istence imposes mutual rights and obligations on us, the trick
vs powerless); dominant/dominated nations; center/periphery
to make the relation peaceful lies in the equity and harmony.
states.
The parties will be well advised to train in both and not go for
If we combine the fault lines with the two forms of violence,
higher levels of positive peace than they can master. And
direct actor violence and indirect structural violence (cultural
Western individualism and state sovereignty may impede
violence is not itself violence, but very important as it legiti-
positive peace.
mizes the other two), we get:

Massive Category Killing as the Extreme Peace A basic paradigm for massive category killing
Negation
Private S: structural
Concepts are better understood contrasted with their negations. no. Fault lines A: actor violence violence
The Black Plague stimulated health studies, and twentieth-
century genocides stimulated peace studies; not only Shoa, but 1 Nature Slaughter of ‘beasts, Depletion pollution
savages,
also MAD, by the logic of the Cold War nuclear arms race. The
wilderness’
nuclear arms race as structure was blamed, not an evil perpe-
trator against innocent victims. This discourse switch from evil 2 Gender Killing women: abortion, Patriarchy as prison
party to bad relation-orientation was among the factors ending infanticide, witch- of women, putting
the Cold War. burning them ‘in their
place’
1. Definition: Genocide ¼ Massive Category Killing, MCK, 3 Generation Privileging Schools as ghetto
meaning by. middle-aged Homes as ghetto
2. Massive ¼ All of a kind available, till exhaustion–saturation.
4 Race Controlling Eradication slavery
3. Category ¼ The same ascribed or achieved characteristics.
dangerous Colonialism slavery
4. Killing ¼ Avoidable life deprivation, by commission or races
omission.
5 Deviance Controlling
“There is no good German but a dead German” are words l Criminal dangerous Euthanasia exclusion
l Mental persons Euthanasia exclusion
typical of wars. The target is ‘all of a kind,’ defined by ascribed
l Somatic Euthanasia exclusion
or achieved attributes; with massive air raids, year after year. Or
massive ethnic cleansing, year after year. By the MCK definition 6 Class Controlling
both are genocides. Lemkin’s (Raphael Lemkin, 1900–59, l Military dangerous Exploitation of body
Polish lawyer) focus on genus, people, opens for that. But the l Economic classes Repression of mind
l Political Elimination Alienation of spirit
massive killing of Germans was done by World War II (WWII)
l Cultural
winners, of Jews by WWII losers; ethnic cleansing of Moors and
Jews in Spain from 1492 was by victors, Serbian acts in Yugo- 7 Nation Genocide narrowly State as prison of
slavia by losers. Losers commit genocide, winners not; ‘massive Culture defined nations ruled
category killing’ covers both. Ideology by ‘majority’
The ‘category’ is a set of humans, violence – like peace – is 8 State War (killing for Imperialism
a relation, the bridging concept is the fault line between Country food, sacrifice, Isolating
categories: Territory conquest) ‘Pariah’ states

1. Definition: Fault line ¼ division between categories of

humans.
Across fault lines massive structural violence may grow,
Here are 16 types of MCK by pure logic, not by ideology. To
exploiting, repressing, alienating; with sparks of massive direct
focus on 7A only is selective, ideological.
violence. The genocide concept focuses on the effect, less on the
The extreme peace negation, the total Table 7A, is atrocious;
fault line cause.
but 6-7-8S, massive structural killing of the poorest in
The atrocious effect comprises all three types of violence:
periphery countries, is worse in numbers. And 2A, killing
1. Direct violence ¼ Intended, by actors hurting–harming– unborn and newborn girls, has by far outdone 7A. The focus in
killing. the table is moving over time, but one factor remains: 1A and
Peace 623

1S against animals may serve as training in taking life, an today, was massive and directed against a category, but not
argument for vegetarianism. MCK. What was killed was and is a society; not genocide, but
The dominating world elite is human, male, middle-aged, sociocide.)).
white, ‘normal,’ powerful, from dominant nations (like And peace politics has to dampen all fault lines through
Anglo-American), from center states (like United Kingdom– equity and harmony to overcome discrimination and preju-
United States). dice, reconciliation for past atrocities, and creative conflict
Today that elite is challenged by all its fault line opposites, resolution for the present.
including Mother nature. But the discourse is still focused on This is what peace theories and practice are up against, like
7A, with cases like Armenia, Nanjing, Gulag-KZ, Shoa, Hir- health theories and practice are up against massive lethal diseases,
oshima, Indonesia, Cambodia, Rwanda; making actors visible contagious from the outside as epidemics, even pandemics;
as perpetrators and victims, but structures invisible as any focus structural from the inside as cancers, circulation diseases, and
on their victims – women, colored, etc. – might lead to deeper mental disorders with an ‘epidemiological shift’ from the
scrutiny of that elite. former to the latter; for health, as for peace from direct to
To restore law and order they bring perpetrators to punitive structural violence. States are waning in salience, nations not;
justice – tribunals – and the guilty are punished, even killed. interstate wars are less frequent (like killing of monarchs with
But adjudication also serves to acquit the judges, the non- monarchy waning or like wars of liberation from colonialism
indicted, structures and cultures, and future generations. The as classical colonialism no longer matters. Interstate wars show
focus is narrow. signs of decline because the states, except for the biggest, and
Some waning discourses still legitimize omitting other with the states the state system, decline in salience as they get
victims: absorbed into regions. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our
Nature: because animals are seen as soulless, feeling no pain Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, London: Penguin, 2011
and no bereavement, having no families. adds important psychology to historiography, but his violence
Gender: because women were seen as born inferior to bear and peace concepts do not reflect contemporary reality.) but
children, as emotional not intellectual, as temptresses, as being massive inequality is increasing, changing the focus in the
of Satan. peace formula to equity.
Generation: because the old generation has to make way for
the next, and the young generation has to wait and first be See also: Conflict and Conflict Resolution, Social Psychology
adequately trained. of; Conflict and War, Archaeology of: Weapons and Artifacts;
Race: because primitives are seen in the same way as animals Genocide and War; Peace Movements; Peace Processes; Peace
or women. Promotion, Psychology of; Peace and Nonviolence: Overview
Deviance: because criminals have excluded themselves, the of Anthropological Aspects; Peace-Making in History; Slavery
mentally ill are unfit, the somatically ill are a burden to and Violence; War, Social Causes and Consequences; Warfare
themselves and society. in History; Youth, Music, and Peace Building.
Class: because class sorts the fittest from the less fit.
Nation: because some nations are seen as up front in human
history, others as lagging behind, having to wait to be
adequately trained.
States: because states (except Japan) have the right to war, Bibliography
and wars identify the fittest states to rule the world from the
less fit. Adolf, Antony, 2009. Peace: A World History. Polity Press, Cambridge.
Brewer, John D., 2010. Peace Processes. Polity, Cambridge.
There is also cultural violence built into academic disci-
de Figueiredo, Fidelino, 1966. Ideais de Paz. Portugalia, Lisboa.
plines making some of the 16 invisible: international studies Galtung, Johan, 1996. Peace by Peaceful Means. SAGE, London.
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Galtung, Johan, 2010. A Theory of Conflict. TRANSCEND University Press, Oslo.
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The micro- and mesolevel social sciences, psychology– Galtung, Johan, Fischer, Dietrich, 2012. Peace Mathematics. TRANSCEND University
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Kant, Immanuel, 1992. Perpetual Peace. Hackett, Indianapolis/Cambridge.
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Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis, from 1948 up till