Assessing the Basis for a Culture of Peace in Contemporary Societies

Abstract

The culture of peace promoted by the United Nations may provide a set of global norms that are needed for a peaceful world. However, the bases for the culture that is advocated rest on a liberal conception rather than empirical data. Does empirical evidence support the coherence of these bases, or are there flaws in how the culture of peace is conceived? In an attempt to answer this question, objective indicators were selected to represent each of the presumed bases for a culture of peace. These indicators were correlated with one another, and a factor analysis examined the extent to which the data cohered and could be accounted for by a single ‘peacefulness’ factor. The results suggest that four different peace factors need to be distinguished. These are correlated with different indices of peace and may be used to assess the relative peacefulness of different nation-states. The data, together with a consideration of the literature on peaceful cultures, suggest that a global culture of peace may require the development of an additional base that is not mentioned in the United Nations’ program of action.