Learning Outcome                           Prescribed Content                                                  ?

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Contested meanings of                  Diferent definitions of peace, conflict

peace, conflict and violence.         and violence, including positive peace

                                                         and structural violence.

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                                          Positive and Negative Peace

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Johan Galtung, the father of peace studies often refers to the distinction between ‘negative peace’ and ‘positive peace’ (e.g. Galtung 1996). Negative peace refers to the absence of violence. When, for example, a ceasefire is enacted, a negative peace will ensue. It is negative because something undesirable stopped happening (e.g. the violence stopped, the oppression ended). Positive peace is filled with positive content such as restoration of relationships, the creation of social systems that serve the needs of the whole population and the constructive resolution of conflict.

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Peace does not mean the total absence of any conflict. It means the absence of violence in all forms and the unfolding of conflict in a constructive way.

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Peace therefore exists where people are interacting non-violently and are managing their conflict positively – with respectful attention to the legitimate needs and interest of all concerned.

 

Efforts to achieve positive peace emphasize:

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• Establishing peace through world order by supporting international law, compliance with multilateral treaties, use of international courts, and nonviolent resolution of disputes, participation in international organizations, trade, and communication.

 

• Establishing social equality and justice, economic equity, ecological balance; protecting citizens from attack, and meeting basic human needs.

 

• Establishing a civil peace that provides the constitutional and legal means necessary to settle differences nonviolently.

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• Eliminating indirect violence, that shortens the life span of people, sustains unequal life chances, or reduces quality of life for any citizen.

 

• Practicing conflict resolution as a foundation for building peaceful interpersonal and institutional relationships.

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                                          Violence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Violence, key concept definition IB

 

Violence is often defined as physical or psychological force afflicted upon another being. In the context of global politics, it could be seen as anything someone does that prevents others from reaching their full potential. This broader definition would encompass unequal distribution of power that excludes entire groups from accessing resources essential for improved living standards or well-being, and discriminatory practices that exclude entire groups of people from accessing certain resources.

 

                                                            Structural Violence

 

Structural violence is a term commonly ascribed to Johan Galtung, which he introduced in the article "Violence, Peace, and Peace Research". It refers to a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. Institutionalized adultism, ageism, classism, elitism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, racism, and sexism are some examples of structural violence as proposed by Galtung. According to Galtung, rather than conveying a physical image, structural violence is an "avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs". As it is avoidable, structural violence is a high cause of premature death and unnecessary disability. Because structural violence affects people differently in various social structures, it is very closely linked to social injustice. Structural violence and direct violence are said to be highly interdependent, including family violence, gender violence, hate crimes, racial violence, police violence, state violence, terrorism, and war.

 

In his book Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, James Gilligan defines structural violence as "the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted with the relatively lower death rates experienced by those who are above them." Gilligan largely describes these "excess deaths" as "non-natural" and attributes them to the stress, shame, discrimination, and denigration that results from lower status.

 

                                                        International Dimensions

 

            A third of the 2 Billion people in the developing countries are starving or suffering from malnutrition. Twenty-                 five per cent of their children die before their fifth birthday […] Less than 10 per cent of the 15 million children                 who died this year had been vaccinated against the six most common and dangerous children's diseases.                       Vaccination costs £3 per child. But not doing so costs us five million lives a year. These are classic examples of               structural violence. - Petra Kelly, Fighting for Hope

 

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The violence in structural violence is attributed to the specific organizations of society that injure or harm individuals or masses of individuals. In explaining his point of view on how structural violence affects the health of marginalized people, medical anthropologist Paul Farmer writes:

 

Their sickness is a result of structural violence: neither culture nor pure individual will is at fault; rather, historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.

 

This perspective has been continually discussed by Paul Farmer, as well as by Philippe Bourgois and Nancy Scheper-Hughes.

 

Theorists argue that structural violence is embedded in the current world system; this form of violence, which is centered on apparently inequitable social arrangements, is not inevitable. Ending the global problem of structural violence will require actions that may seem unfeasible in the short term. To some, this indicates that it may be easier to devote resources to minimizing the harmful impacts of structural violence. Others, such as futurist Wendell Bell, see a need for long-term vision to guide projects for social justice. Many structural violences, such as racism and sexism, have become such a common occurrence in society that they appear almost invisible. Despite this fact, sexism and racism have been the focus of intense cultural and political resistance for many decades. Significant reform has been accomplished, though the project remains incomplete.

 

                                                                 Access to Health Care

 

Structural violence affects the availability of health care in the sense that physicians often need to pay attention to broad social forces (racism, gender inequality, classism, etc.) to determine who falls ill and who will be given access to care. It is more likely for structural violence to occur in areas where biosocial methods are neglected in a country's health care system. Since structurally violent situations are viewed primarily as biological consequences, it neglects environmentally stimulated problems, such as negative social behaviours or inequality prominence. If biosocial understandings are forsaken when considering communicable diseases such as HIV, for example, prevention methods and treatment practices become inadequate and unsustainable for populations. However, the challenge is obvious: many countries cannot afford to stop the harmful cycle of structural violence. Paul Farmer argues that the major flaw in the dominant model of medical care is that medical services are sold as a commodity, remaining only available to those who can afford them. The concept of structural violence is used to show how medical professionals are not trained to understand the social forces behind disease, nor are they trained to deal with or alter them. Medical professionals have to ignore the social determinants that alter access to care, and as a result, medical interventions are significantly less effective in low-income countries. Structural violence is an issue not only in developing countries, but also in North America. For example, it has had a significant impact on diagnosis and treatment of AIDS in the United States. A 1990 study by Moore et al. found that blacks had a significantly lesser chance of receiving treatment than whites. Findings from another study suggest that the increased rate of workplace injury among undocumented Latino immigrants in the United States can be understood as an example of structural violence. Structural violence is the result of policy and social structures, and change can only be a product of altering the processes that encourage structural violence in the first place. Paul Farmer claims that "structural interventions" are one possible solution.

 

Countries such as Haiti and Rwanda have implemented these interventions with positive outcomes. Examples include prohibiting the commodification of the citizen needs, such as health care, ensuring equitable access to effective therapies, and developing social safety nets. These initiatives increase citizen's social and economic rights, thus decreasing structural violence. However, for these structural interventions to be successful, medical professionals need to be capable of executing such tasks. Unfortunately, many of these professionals are not trained to perform structural interventions. Moreover, medical professionals continue to operate under conventional clinical intervention because physicians can rightly note that structural interventions are not their job. Therefore, the onus falls more on political and other experts to implement such structural changes. As noted, structural forces account for most if not all epidemic diseases (e.g., HIV). Medical professionals still continue to operate under the downstream phenomenon, with a focus is on individual lifestyle factors rather than general socio-economic, cultural, and environmental conditions. This paradigm obscures the structural impediments to changes because it tends to avoid the root causes that should be focused on. One response is to incorporate medical professionals and to acknowledge that such active structural interventions are necessary to address real public health issues.

 

The lessons that have been learned from successful examples of structural interventions in these countries are fundamental. Although health disparities resulting from social inequalities are possible to reduce, as long as health care is exchanged as a commodity, those without the power to purchase it will have less access to it. Biosocial research should be the main focus. Sociology can better explain the origin and spread of infectious diseases, such as HIV or AIDS. Research shows that the risk of HIV is highly affected by one's behavior and habits. Although some structural interventions can decrease premature morbidity and mortality, the social and historical determinants of the structural violence cannot be omitted. Although the interventions have enormous influence on economical and political aspects of international bodies, more interventions are needed to improve access.

 

Structural violence also exists in the area of mental health, where systems are designed to ignore the lived experiences of people with mental illnesses when making decisions about services and funding without consulting with the ill, including those who are illiterate, cannot access computers, do not speak the dominant language, are homeless, are too unwell to fill out long formal surveys, or are in locked psychiatric and forensic wards. Online-only consultation may be inappropriate for people with a lived experience of mental illness. Structural violence is also apparent when consumers in developed countries die from preventable diseases 15–25 years earlier than do people without a lived experience of mental health.

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Case study activity

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So, we can see that defining peace is not as easy as perhaps we thought. Let's look at a few case studies and decide whether or not we would describe them as real peace.

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Example 1

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We could think of peace in terms of a narrow version, which implies the ending of violence but not resolving its underlying causes. The current situation in Cyprus where Greek and Turkish Cypriot military forces, or Korea where North and South Korean forces, confront each other daily across a demilitarized line might be described as peace, according to this framework

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Example 2

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We could think of peace in terms of a broad version that would produce a peace agreement, peaceful state, and society according to a single universal model. The European Union’s emergence from the ruins of World War II might be an example, where very similar states have emerged

 

Example 3

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Finally, we could think in terms of multiple versions of peace which would imply the coexistence, but simultaneous agreement to differ, of very different social and political systems. Perhaps the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel in 1978 is a good example of this approach, in which very different states and their population, with many remaining and deep disagreements and difference, are reconciled, to a limited degree

For each of the examples given, discuss whether you would agree whether or not it shows peace. If not, what would need to change? If you are unfamiliar with the case studies then you may spend time looking at a little background research. 

 

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Reading Activity:

Read the following extract from 'Peace: A Very Short Introduction' - Richmond, O (1997), OUP, Oxford. Use the questions that follow as a framework for class/small group discussion.

'Each of these versions of peace offers different levels of security and rights for society: a narrow version would be basic but relatively insecure, a broader version more complex but also more sustainable, and a multiple approach even more complex but stable. Underlying each type is a central question: does one make peace by subjugating one’s enemies, assimilating them by converting them into something similar to the dominant group, or by accepting, and thus becoming reconciled to their difference?'

According to Johan Galtung, one of the founders of modern peace studies, a ‘negative peace’ is the aim of narrow versions (which would be a good description of the failed peace treaty after World War I), a ‘positive peace’ the aim of broader versions (which may well explain the European Peace after World War II). A more recent concept, a ‘hybrid peace’, is the amalgam of multiple approaches (as may be emerging in places such as Timor Leste or Kosovo after the conflicts there in the late 1990s). A narrow understanding of peace indicates an absence of overt violence (such as warfare or low-intensity conflict) both between and within states. This may take the form of a ceasefire, a power-sharing agreement, or exist within an authoritarian political system. It indicates that one state, or group in society, dominates another through violence or more subtle means. This approach has the benefit of simplicity, but a negative peace will always be fragile because it is based on ever-shifting configurations of power in the international system or within the state. Hidden, so-called ‘structural violence’ embedded in social, economic, and political systems remains unaddressed. This might explain why, after various ceasefires in the 2000s, the peace process has collapsed in Colombia on several occasions, because the core issues of the dispute, in particular relating to land distribution, poverty, and socio-economic inequality, have not as yet been addressed. A peace agreement based on a narrow understanding of peace would probably not be satisfactory in anything other than the short term. Military force or an authoritarian government may maintain a basic security order—as in East Germany during the Cold War—but many deficits relating to human rights, democratic representation, and prosperity remain.

These remaining issues are markers of structural violence—meaning the indirect violence that is created by oppressive structures of government, of law, bureaucracy, trade, resource distribution, social class, or because of poverty or environmental problems. Sometimes structural violence can occur even in relatively peaceful societies.'

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      1. Does one make peace by subjugating one’s enemies, assimilating them by converting them into something                     similar to the dominant group, or by accepting, and thus becoming reconciled to their difference?

 

      2. What is the relationship between simplicity and fragility when considering the importance of how we define                     peace? How might this relate to time considerations - short, medium and long term etc?

 

      3. How can we distinguish between different types of violence (overt vs. structural?)

 

      4. What case studies can we use to relate our learning in this extract?

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