Positive and negative concept of peace

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The distinction between the terms "positive" and "negative" peace goes back to the Norwegian peace researcher Galtung. The fact that peace is always felt positively should not be called into question. Rather, the distinction relates to the effort a society goes to in order to bring about peace.

The concept of peace is divided into positive and negative peace.
The concept of peace is divided into positive and negative peace.

Is peace ever a "negative" instead of a "positive"?

  • The word "negative" in the phrase "negative peace" should not imply a rating as "bad". In fact, in Galtung's peace research and the resulting peace concepts, "negative" refers to the absence of certain circumstances in the sense that one can also do disease tests in the absence of certain pathogens or symptoms of negative tests would speak.
  • Accordingly, negative peace means the absence of war or warlike circumstances. It is a state of peace that society lives more or less passively.
  • Since this kind of peace is more of a passive state than an active process, negative peace can prevail in a country, that is to say, given. That term component now plays a major role in the delimitation of negative and positive peace.

Delimitation of the concepts of peace

  • Perhaps you would now assume that in Germany in Galtung's understanding of "negative peace" prevails. In fact, however, peace in the German state can be described as a positive peace using Galten's terms of peace.
  • Although the designation as positive is not to be understood directly as a valuation, in spite of this, a country in which it may be positive Peace can be spoken to, a country with negative peace in its peace consciousness and its effort for peace be superior.
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  • So positive peace is not something that rules. Unlike negative peace, the concept of peace is not a state of affairs, but rather a lengthy process that a society accepts for peace.
  • For positive peace, something has to happen actively in a given society, unlike for negative peace. Every single citizen contributes to the implementation of positive peace, whereas negative peace is anchored at the state level.
  • The positive concept of peace builds on the efforts of a society to actively identify the causes for Eliminating wars, such as fighting poverty, ensuring justice and violence contain.
  • A final state can never be reached, since the positive concept of peace excludes a state of being. Much more positive peace is characterized by constant, active commitment to the process-based elimination of the causes of war.
  • Setbacks play just as much a role as progress, so a setback does not mean that a country is not striving for positive peace. The effort itself plays the role here, rather less about constant success.

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