Global Peace Index 2009, Institue for Economics and Peace
NEWSWEEK's Dina Fine Maron brings us this dispatch from the D.C. bureau, after she spent her afternoon hobnobbing with the policy wonks at the Institute for Economics and Peace. --KP
Since last year, the world has gotten a little less peaceful, according to the team of economists and peace experts who compiled the 2009 Institute for Economics and Peace
Global Peace Index. The global economic crisis fueled the threat of public violence, and had political ramifications that negatively impacted global safety and security, says Clyde McConaghy, President of the Global Peace Index. Released today, their third annual Index ranked 144 countries from most to least peaceful, based on internal indicators like a country’s crime rates, political instability, and its level of organized crime alongside external measures like a country’s relations with its neighbors and its military deaths.
This year New Zealand tops the chart as the number one most peaceful country, thanks to its stable coalition government and its good relations with its neighbors. Not surprisingly, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia claim the least peaceful countries’ spots, with Iraq in last place. Predictable enough, right? But the GPI designers say their study shows more than just abstraction. They have calculated peace, which they define as “the absence of violence,” into dollars. Their calculations suggest that right now $2.4 trillion, or 4.4 percent, of the global economy is dependent on violence. But if the world were peaceful, they say, the annual economic bonus would be U.S. $7.2 trillion, based on latest data from 2007. Ideally, living without the threat of instability would mean the violence dollars could be redeployed into areas that would cause other less destructive markets to grow.
The United States ranking has stayed relatively stable in the middle of the pack, though it improved six points since last year, climbing from #89 to #83. The uptick is largely due to external factors: the decreased threat of terrorist attacks against the United States and the drastic slide into violence and unrest in a slew of other countries. Still, that means the U.S. is ranked 22 spots below a notoriously unpeaceful hotspot like Nicaragua. Why? Not all indicators are weighed equally, says McConaghy; indicators resulting in death count more heavily. So although Nicaragua has high levels of political unrest and a higher likelihood of violent demonstrations, the United States ranking suffers from its easy access to arms, high level of organized crime, and large number of military deaths.
The study suggests that the recipe for success, other than being a stable, small democratic country (which rounded out all the top spots), is to have a well functioning government, freedom of the press, regional integration, high life expectancy and literacy, and women in parliament.
