The Global Peace Index (GPI) is the world’s leading measure of national peacefulness, measuring the state of peace in 162 countries. Their mission is to generate new information about the state of global peace and make a valuable contribution to better understand how civil society, researches, policymakers, and governments can create a more peaceful society.
On Tuesday, June 11th the Institute for Economics and Peace and the Center for Strategic and International Studies released the Global Peace Index 2013, and hosted a panel in Washington, DC to discuss the economic value of peace in order to create a tangible metric. The GPI analysis suggests that the economic impact of the failure to contain violence on the world economy totals $9.46 trillion—almost 11 percent of the world GDP. The study and subsequent analysis is considered to conservatively estimate the economic impact of violence because of the dearth of available data for categories of expenditure related to violence.
Since 2008, the world’s overall peace index rating has dropped. A drop in internal peace, in countries all around the world, has been the driving force behind this dynamic. The peace gap between countries under authoritarian regimes and the rest of the world is growing. Further, countries that suffered greatly in the 2008 financial crisis have a seen a decrease in peace faster than the rest of the world. Two key trends have emerged since 2008: More countries are now clustered around a certain level of global peace than six years ago; however the least peaceful nations are becoming even less peaceful than before, and are separating from the rest of the world.
The Asia-Pacific had a large variation in scores. The region is home to GPI bottom-dwellers such as North Korea and Myanmar, but also has top-ten ranked countries such as New Zealand and Japan. South America experienced only slight changes in terms of peacefulness since last year’s GPI.
Most of negative scores in peace resulted from internal security challenges such as political instability and high-murder rates. For example, Syria’s scores took the largest drop in GPI history, due to its internal struggle. The Russia and Eurasia region was among the least peaceful regions in the world due to corruption and terrorist activity.
Europe and North America remain the most peaceful regions overall. However, the U.S. is ranked 99th out of 162, just one spot ahead of China. Panelist Mike Lofgren, a former staff member in the U.S. Congress with focus on international security, commented on the low ranking: “The United States is the driver of the international system, its example matters crucially.”
Why is the U.S. ranked so low? The GPI reports the low score on the basis of its high jail populations; its large and active military; its involvement in numerous overseas conflicts; a high homicide rate; ease of access to small arms; and its nuclear and heavy-weapons capabilities—to name a few.
Lofgren vouched for the United States and their involvement in world affairs and explained, “Among the bottom ten countries, no fewer than five are experiencing, or recently experienced U.S. military action.” He continued “I believe we must think more creatively about what a society of peace ought to look like and how we get there.”
We all hope for peace, and the GPI is a great indicator of world trends concerning global peace. Concerning the question “How?”, many different answers appear. Is military action and international involvement the best way to bring peace? Is there another option that would work better? Perhaps that answer is not yet known; however one thing always coincides with peace: trust. Without it, true peace cannot exist. Lofgren explained, “When governments view the people not as citizens, but at criminal suspects, it is the opposite of social peace, regardless of the crime rate or any presence of judicial or extrajudicial killings. There would exist a permanent state of war of government against people.”
Photo: Tom Blackwell (cc).
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How To Achieve Global Peace? Insights from the Global Peace Index
June 20, 2013
The Global Peace Index (GPI) is the world’s leading measure of national peacefulness, measuring the state of peace in 162 countries. Their mission is to generate new information about the state of global peace and make a valuable contribution to better understand how civil society, researches, policymakers, and governments can create a more peaceful society.
On Tuesday, June 11th the Institute for Economics and Peace and the Center for Strategic and International Studies released the Global Peace Index 2013, and hosted a panel in Washington, DC to discuss the economic value of peace in order to create a tangible metric. The GPI analysis suggests that the economic impact of the failure to contain violence on the world economy totals $9.46 trillion—almost 11 percent of the world GDP. The study and subsequent analysis is considered to conservatively estimate the economic impact of violence because of the dearth of available data for categories of expenditure related to violence.
Since 2008, the world’s overall peace index rating has dropped. A drop in internal peace, in countries all around the world, has been the driving force behind this dynamic. The peace gap between countries under authoritarian regimes and the rest of the world is growing. Further, countries that suffered greatly in the 2008 financial crisis have a seen a decrease in peace faster than the rest of the world. Two key trends have emerged since 2008: More countries are now clustered around a certain level of global peace than six years ago; however the least peaceful nations are becoming even less peaceful than before, and are separating from the rest of the world.
The Asia-Pacific had a large variation in scores. The region is home to GPI bottom-dwellers such as North Korea and Myanmar, but also has top-ten ranked countries such as New Zealand and Japan. South America experienced only slight changes in terms of peacefulness since last year’s GPI.
Most of negative scores in peace resulted from internal security challenges such as political instability and high-murder rates. For example, Syria’s scores took the largest drop in GPI history, due to its internal struggle. The Russia and Eurasia region was among the least peaceful regions in the world due to corruption and terrorist activity.
Europe and North America remain the most peaceful regions overall. However, the U.S. is ranked 99th out of 162, just one spot ahead of China. Panelist Mike Lofgren, a former staff member in the U.S. Congress with focus on international security, commented on the low ranking: “The United States is the driver of the international system, its example matters crucially.”
Why is the U.S. ranked so low? The GPI reports the low score on the basis of its high jail populations; its large and active military; its involvement in numerous overseas conflicts; a high homicide rate; ease of access to small arms; and its nuclear and heavy-weapons capabilities—to name a few.
Lofgren vouched for the United States and their involvement in world affairs and explained, “Among the bottom ten countries, no fewer than five are experiencing, or recently experienced U.S. military action.” He continued “I believe we must think more creatively about what a society of peace ought to look like and how we get there.”
We all hope for peace, and the GPI is a great indicator of world trends concerning global peace. Concerning the question “How?”, many different answers appear. Is military action and international involvement the best way to bring peace? Is there another option that would work better? Perhaps that answer is not yet known; however one thing always coincides with peace: trust. Without it, true peace cannot exist. Lofgren explained, “When governments view the people not as citizens, but at criminal suspects, it is the opposite of social peace, regardless of the crime rate or any presence of judicial or extrajudicial killings. There would exist a permanent state of war of government against people.”
Photo: Tom Blackwell (cc).
