Peace has been a condition of survival for humans throughout time. In times of war, it is not possible to achieve the levels of cooperation for countries to solve challenges, and live in a safe and harmonious environment. According to the Institute for Economics & Peace, we need an understanding of the conditions that create and sustain peaceful societies, otherwise, it will not be possible to develop policies or understand the resources required to build peaceful societies. The reality is that many countries in the 21st century that find themselves in war do so because of external interference motivated by a number of reasons. This is particularly the case for the, five least peaceful countries, as according to the most recent Global Peace Index: Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and Iraq.
Moreover, the Positive Peace report aims to provide a framework to solve the complicated problems that the world faces. The report refers to Positive Peace as ‘attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies’. Positive Peace can be described as creating an optimal environment for human potential to thrive. It is conceptually and empirically linked to socio-economic resilience and measures of inclusiveness, wellbeing and happiness. On the other hand, negative Peace is the ‘absence of violence or fear of violence’.
Positive Peace defines the aims that a system needs to change and adapt. It says that interventions should convince the system towards ever higher levels of Positive Peace, rather than creating radical change, which runs the risk of ‘disrupting the fabric of society’. However, we face many crises on the horizon, such as the climate crisis, and without radical change as soon as possible from all governments, the human race faces a huge catastrophe.
The report says that Positive Peace can be used as the foundations for empirically measuring a country’s resilience — its capability to absorb, adapt and recover from shocks, such as economic crisis. This is useful as having an understanding of a country’s ability to recover provides insight into the types of policies that a government should pursue. Using the Positive Peace model helps policy makers to understand fragility and help predict the chances of conflict, violence and instability. However, what should be investigated in more detail are the motivations of the protagonists of war, rather than a countries’ ability to recover from economic shock. Whilst some countries are better equipped to deal with the effects of war, some are consistent protagonists, thus, an addition to the Economics & Peace research should look into how to hinder the protagonists of war and violence. In addition, Covid-19 had an impact on Positive Peace in 2022. The improvement in Positive Peace recorded until 2019, largely decreased in 2020, as a result of the social and economic disruptions caused from policy responses to the pandemic. Because of this, future editions of the report will assess the pandemic’s effects in more detail.
The Positive Peace report views nations as systems and aims to provide guidance for understanding the causality and link between humanity and the wider systems, such as the atmosphere and biosphere. It states that ‘systems are self-regulating and self-modifying and operate on two levels; first as a collection of interconnected subsystems and second as part of the larger systems surrounding it.’ The report is built on the understanding that these interdependencies are essential to meeting the global challenges of our age. Societies also have both formal and informal rules, referred to as encoded norms, which govern social behaviour and aim to maintain the system in a stable state.
The Pillars (factors) of Positive Peace:
The diagram above shows a visual representation of the eight factors taken into consideration for Positive Peace. The only Pillar of Positive Peace to record a decrease was Low Levels of Corruption, deteriorating by 1.8 per cent since 2009. The model above can also be used as a method to create positive peace activities, as done by the Institute for Economics & Peace in Uganda, Australia and the Philippines.
Key findings from the Positive Peace Report 2022:
Global and Regional Trends
More countries improved in Positive Peace — 126 in total, or 77 per cent of all countries assessed — than deteriorated from 2009 to 2020.
- Positive Peace improved 2.4 per cent globally in the past decade.
- This improvement was mainly driven by the Structures domain of Positive Peace, which is the technological and economic foundations that support social development.
The Benefits of Societal Resilience
- From 2009 to 2020, the per capita GDP of countries that improved in the Positive Peace Index rose by an average of 3.1 per cent per year.
- Inflation in countries where the Positive Peace Index improved was on average three times less volatile than where Positive Peace deteriorated in the past decade. Inflation volatility is detrimental to growth because it creates uncertainty, thereby reducing demand and business investment.
- A model based on Positive Peace suggests that the global number of Covid-19 cases by the end of 2021 was almost 700 million, instead of the officially reported 290 million. The number of fatalities was most likely around 12 million persons, instead of the reported 5.4 million.
- High levels of societal resilience are associated with greater life satisfaction because individuals are not weighed down by concerns about survival or excessive poverty.
Key findings from the Middle East
- Almost all regions of the globe recorded improvements in Positive Peace over the past decade, with the Middle East and North Africa improving only marginally. The only region to record a deterioration was North America.
- The Middle East and North Africa has seen a marginal 0.1 per cent improvement in Positive Peace since 2009. The Middle East and North Africa experienced a small, but notable 3.6 per cent deterioration in Low Levels of Corruption. The region’s Well Functioning Government score has deteriorated by 4.3 per cent, lowered by weaker administrative effectiveness as government resources are diverted to address ongoing armed conflicts in the region. The deterioration in these two Pillars have been partly offset by improvements in Free Flow of Information, which improved by 14 per cent.
- The report’s Positive Peace regional ranking for the top 5 countries in the Middle-East and North Africa, from 2009 – 2020, are as follows: 1. Israel 2. United Arab Emirates 3. Kuwait 4. Qatar 5. Tunisia.
Meriam
