Global Peace Index

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

World map of the Global Peace Index. Countries appearing more blue are ranked as more peaceful on the Index, countries appearing more red are ranked as less peaceful.

The Global Peace Index is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations’ and regions’ peacefulness. It is maintained by the Economist, an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks, together with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, Australia. The list was launched in May 2007, and is claimed to be the first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness. The study is the brainchild of Australian entrepreneur Steve Killelea and is endorsed by individuals such as the Dalai Lama, archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former US president Jimmy Carter. Factors examined by the authors include internal factors such as levels of violence and crime within the country and factors in a country's external relations such as military expenditure and wars.

[edit] Methodology

The research team was headed by The Economist Intelligence Unit in conjunction with academics and experts in the field of peace. They measured countries' peacefulness based on wide range of indicators, 24 in all. A table of the indicators is below.^[1] In the table, UCDP stands for the Uppsala Conflict Data Program maintained by the University of Uppsala in Sweden, EIU for The Economist Intelligence Unit, UNSCT for the United Nations Survey of Criminal Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, ICPS is the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London, IISS for the International Institute for Strategic Studies publication The Military Balance 2007, SIPRI for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Arms Transfers Database, and BICC for the Bonn International Center for Conversion.

Indicators not already ranked on a 1 to 5 scale were converted by using the following formula: x=(x-Min(x))/(Max(x)-Min(x)) where Max(x) and Min(x) are the highest and lowest values for that indicator of the countries ranked in the index. The 0 to 1 scores that resulted were then converted to the 1 to 5 scale. Individual indicators were then weighted according to the research team's judgment of their importance. The scores were then tabulated into two weighted sub-indices: internal peace, weighted at 60% of a country's final score, and external peace, weighted at 40% of a country's final score.^[7]

After compiling the Index, the researchers examined it for patterns in order to identify the "drivers" that make for peaceful societies as measured by the index. They found in general that peaceful countries often shared high levels of democracy and transparency of government, education and material well-being, as is the case with Norway, New Zealand, and many of the European countries that ranked among the more peaceful nations on the index. The United States was one prominent exception to this rule largely due to its engagement in warfare, high military expenditure, and high levels of incarceration and homicide.^[8]

Statistical analysis was applied to discover more specific drivers of peace. Specifically, the research team looked for indicators that were included and excluded from the index that had high levels of correlation with the overall score and rank of countries. Among the statistically significant indicators that were not used in the analysis were the functionality of a country's government, regional integration, hostility to foreigners, importance of religion in national life, and GDP per capita.^[9]

Notably absent from the study are Belarus, Iceland, many African nations, Mongolia, North Korea and Afghanistan. They were not included because reliable data for the 24 indicators was not available.^[10]

[edit] Criticism and response to criticism

The Economist, in publishing the index, admitted that, "the index will run into some flak." Specifically, according to The Economist, the weighting of military expenditure "may seem to give heart to freeloaders: countries that enjoy peace precisely because others (often the USA) care for their defence." However, the magazine goes on to argue that the true utility of the index may lie not in its specific rankings of countries now, but in how those rankings change over time, thus tracking when and how countries become more or less peaceful.^[11]

The Peace Index has been criticised for not including indicators specifically relating to violence against women and children. Riane Eisler, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, argued that, "to put it mildly, this blind spot makes the index very inaccurate." She mentions a number of specific cases, including Egypt, where she claims 90 percent of women are subject to genital mutilation, China, where, she says, "female infanticide is still a problem," and Chile, where 26% of women, "suffered at least one episode of violence by a partner, according to a 2000 UNICEF study."^[12]

The Index has received endorsements from a number of major international figures, including the Dalai Lama, archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former United States President Jimmy Carter.^[13] Steve Killelea, the Australian philanthropist who conceived the idea of the Index, argues that the Index, "is a wake-up call for leaders around the globe."^[14]

[edit] 2007 Global Peace Index rankings

Nations considered the most peaceful have lower index scores.^[15]

Rank	Country	Score
1	Norway	1.357
2	New Zealand	1.363
3	Denmark	1.377
4	Ireland	1.396
5	Japan	1.413
6	Finland	1.447
7	Sweden	1.478
8	Canada	1.481
9	Portugal	1.481
10	Austria	1.483
11	Belgium	1.498
12	Germany	1.523
13	Czech Republic	1.524
14	Switzerland	1.526
15	Slovenia	1.539
16	Chile	1.568
17	Slovakia	1.571
18	Hungary	1.575
19	Bhutan	1.611
20	Netherlands	1.620
21	Spain	1.633
22	Oman	1.641
23	Hong Kong	1.657
24	Uruguay	1.661
25	Australia	1.664
26	Romania	1.682
27	Poland	1.683
28	Estonia	1.684
29	Singapore	1.692
30	Qatar	1.702
31	Costa Rica	1.702
32	South Korea	1.719
33	Italy	1.724
34	France	1.729
35	Vietnam	1.729
36	Taiwan	1.731
37	Malaysia	1.744
38	United Arab Emirates	1.747
39	Tunisia	1.762
40	Ghana	1.765
41	Madagascar	1.766
42	Botswana	1.786
43	Lithuania	1.788
44	Greece	1.791
45	Panama	1.798
46	Kuwait	1.818
47	Latvia	1.848
48	Morocco	1.893
49	United Kingdom	1.898
50	Mozambique	1.909
51	Cyprus	1.915
52	Argentina	1.923
53	Zambia	1.930
54	Bulgaria	1.936
55	Paraguay	1.946
56	Gabon	1.952
57	Tanzania	1.966
58	Libya	1.967
59	Cuba	1.968
60	China	1.980
61	Kazakhstan	1.995
62	Bahrain	1.995
63	Jordan	1.997
64	Namibia	2.003
65	Senegal	2.017
66	Nicaragua	2.020
67	Croatia	2.030
68	Malawi	2.038
69	Bolivia	2.052
70	Peru	2.056
71	Guinea	2.059
72	Moldova	2.059
73	Egypt	2.068
74	Dominican Republic	2.071
75	Bosnia and Herzegovina	2.089
76	Cameroon	2.093
77	Syria	2.106
78	Indonesia	2.111
79	Mexico	2.125
80	Ukraine	2.150
81	Jamaica	2.164
82	Republic of Macedonia	2.170
83	Brazil	2.173
84	Serbia	2.181
85	Cambodia	2.197
86	Bangladesh	2.219
87	Ecuador	2.219
88	Papua New Guinea	2.223
89	El Salvador	2.244
90	Saudi Arabia	2.246
91	Kenya	2.258
92	Turkey	2.272
93	Guatemala	2.285
94	Trinidad and Tobago	2.286
95	Yemen	2.309
96	United States of America	2.317
97	Iran	2.320
98	Honduras	2.390
99	South Africa	2.399
100	Philippines	2.428
101	Azerbaijan	2.448
102	Venezuela	2.453
103	Ethiopia	2.479
104	Uganda	2.489
105	Thailand	2.491
106	Zimbabwe	2.495
107	Algeria	2.503
108	Myanmar	2.524
109	India	2.530
110	Uzbekistan	2.542
111	Sri Lanka	2.575
112	Angola	2.587
113	Cote d'Ivoire	2.638
114	Lebanon	2.662
115	Pakistan	2.697
116	Colombia	2.770
117	Nigeria	2.898
118	Russia	2.903
119	Israel	3.033
120	Sudan	3.182
121	Iraq	3.437

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Vision of Humanity - Official Global Peace Index Site