Global Peace Index

World map of the Global Peace Index 2011. Countries appearing more green are ranked as more peaceful, countries appearing more red are ranked as less peaceful.

Change of number of countries in each GPI class from 2007-2011.

The Global Peace Index (GPI) is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations' and regions' peacefulness. It is the product of Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) and developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks with data collected and collated by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The list was launched first in May 2007, then continued yearly. It is claimed to be the first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness. It ranks 158 countries (up from 121 in 2007). The study is the brainchild of Australian entrepreneur Steve Killelea and is endorsed by individuals such as Kofi Annan, the Dalai Lama, archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, economist Jeffrey Sachs, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, Jan Eliasson 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. The index is launched each year at events in London, Washington DC, the United Nations in New York and in Brussels.

Expert Panel

The expert panel for the first GPI in 2007 consisted of:¹

Professor Kevin P. Clements
Professor Daniel Druckman
Paul van Tongeren
Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees
Dr Manuela Mesa
Professor Andrew Mack
Dr Alyson JK Bailes
Dan Smith
Associate Professor Mohammed Abu-Nimer

Methodology

In attempting to gauge peacefulness, the GPI investigates the extent to which countries are involved in ongoing domestic and international conflicts. It also seeks to evaluate the level of harmony or discord within a nation; ten indicators broadly assess what might be described as a safety and security in society. The assertion is that low crime rates, minimal incidences of terrorist acts and violent demonstrations, harmonious relations with neighboring countries, a stable political scene and a small proportion of the population being internally displaced or refugees can be equated with peacefulness.

Countries' peacefulness is measured on a wide range of indicators, 23 in all (originally 24 indicators, but one was dropped in 2008). A table of the indicators is below.² 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.

#	Indicator	Source	Year(s)	Coding
1	Number of external and internal wars fought	UCDP	2004 to 2009	Total number³
2	Estimated deaths due to external wars	UCDP	2010	Total number³
3	Estimated deaths due to internal wars	UCDP	2010	Total number³
4	Level of organized internal conflict	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
5	Relations with neighbouring countries	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
6	Level of perceived criminality in society	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
7	Number of refugees and displaced persons as percentage of population	UNHCR and IDMC	2009 to 2010	Refugee population by percentage of the origin country's population
8	Political instability	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
9	Level of respect for human rights (political terror scale)	Amnesty International	2009	Qualitative measure
10	Potential for terrorist acts	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
11	Number of homicides	UNCTS	2005 to 2009	Intentional homicides, including infanticide, per 100,000 people
12	Level of violent crime	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
13	Likelihood of violent demonstrations	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
14	Number of jailed persons	ICPS	2010	Persons incarcerated per 100,000 people
15	Number of police and security officers	UNCTS	2008 to 2010	Civil security officers per 100,000 people⁴
16	Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP	IISS	2009 to 2010	Cash outlays for armed forces, as a percentage of GDP⁵
17	Number of armed services personnel	IISS	2010	Full-time military personnel per 100,000 people
18	Imports of major conventional weapons	SIPRI	2009 to 2010	Imports of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people⁶
19	Exports of major conventional weapons	SIPRI	2009 to 2010	Exports of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people⁶
20	Funding for UN peacekeeping missions	IEP	2007 to 2010	Total number
21	Number of heavy weapons	IEP	2009	Weapons per 100,000 people⁷
22	Ease of access to small arms and light weapons	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
23	Military capability or sophistication	EIU	2010 to 2011	Qualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5

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.⁸

The main findings of the Global Peace Index are:⁹

Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration
Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption
Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocks are most likely to get a higher ranking.

An additional aim of the GPI is to explore the concept of "positive peace". Various studies have proposed that a culture of peace might be based on human rights, gener equality, democratic participation, tolerant solidarity, open communication and international security. However, these links between peace and its causes tend to be presumed, rather than systematically measured. This report also examins relationships between the GPI and reliable international measures, including democracy and transparency, education and material wellbeing. As such, it seeks to understand the relative importance of a range of potential determinants, or "drivers", which may influence the creation of nurturance of peaceful societies, both internally and externally.

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, corruption, freedom of the media and GDP per capita.¹⁰

Notably absent from the 2007 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.¹¹ Most of these countries are included in the 2010 Index, which now ranks 149 countries worldwide.

Criticism and response

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 defense." 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.¹²

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% of women are subject to genital mutilation and China, where, she says, "female infanticide is still a problem," according to a 2000 UNICEF study.¹³

The Index has been widely recognized. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University said: "The GPI continues its pioneering work in drawing the world’s attention to the massive resources we are squandering in violence and conflict. The lives and money wasted in wars, incarcerations, weapons systems, weapons trade, and more, could be directed to ending poverty, promoting education, and protecting the environment. The GPI will not only draw attention to these crucial issues, but help us understand them and to invest productively in a more peaceful world."¹⁴

The Index has received endorsements as a political project from a number of major international figures, including the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, former President of Finland and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari, the Dalai Lama, archbishop Desmond Tutu, Muhammad Yunus, and former United States President Jimmy Carter.¹⁵ 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."¹⁶