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Peace Reading Activity

This document discusses different definitions of peace and their implications. It outlines that a narrow definition of peace focuses only on an absence of overt violence but does not address underlying issues, making such peace fragile. A broader definition sees peace as also addressing structural violence such as economic and political inequalities. A narrow peace maintained by force may establish short-term security but will not satisfy human rights or prosperity in the long-term. The document uses examples like post-WWI and post-WWII Europe to illustrate different types of peace and their sustainability over time.

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29 views1 page

Peace Reading Activity

This document discusses different definitions of peace and their implications. It outlines that a narrow definition of peace focuses only on an absence of overt violence but does not address underlying issues, making such peace fragile. A broader definition sees peace as also addressing structural violence such as economic and political inequalities. A narrow peace maintained by force may establish short-term security but will not satisfy human rights or prosperity in the long-term. The document uses examples like post-WWI and post-WWII Europe to illustrate different types of peace and their sustainability over time.

Uploaded by

fguerberoff
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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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.’

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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