Peace: positive and negative

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A contested idea — not just the absence of war, but for many a just, fair society with no hidden violence. It splits into negative and positive peace.

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The absence of direct violence — the fighting has stopped (a ceasefire) — but poverty, injustice and oppression may remain.

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The absence of all violence, including hidden structural violence (unfair systems) and cultural violence (ideas that justify it) — a genuinely just society.

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Johan Galtung, a peace researcher, who also developed the idea of structural and cultural violence.

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If a ceasefire leaves the injustices that caused the war, violence tends to return — so lasting peace requires removing the structural and cultural causes too.

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Harm built into unfair systems — poverty, discrimination, exclusion — that damages people without a direct attacker.

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Ideas, beliefs and norms that justify or normalise violence and injustice, making them seem acceptable.

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It can have no war yet be deeply unjust (poverty, repression) — that is only negative peace; positive peace requires justice too.

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It may be an ideal no society fully reaches, since some injustice always remains — but supporters see it as a direction to aim at, not a finish line.

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Because tackling only the fighting leaves the grievances that cause conflict, so without justice the peace is fragile and violence can reignite.

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A ceasefire or truce that stops the fighting while the injustices that caused the war remain unresolved.