Positive Peace

[Page 640]Positive peace is a term coined by peace scholar Johan Galtung, who differentiated between negative and positive peace. Negative peace denotes the absence of direct (physical) violence, often found in the form of a postwar cease-fire. Positive peace describes more than just the absence of violence and instead describes a situation in which peace is also a state of social justice. The thinking of positive peace can be said to have led to a more proactive approach to peace-building interventions, which now go beyond the facilitation of military cease-fires.

Negativepeace is defined by absence, that is, the absence of organized violence and violent conflict. In a situation of negative peace, it may be that there is no open, violent conflict anymore, but that less visible ...