Contested Meanings of Peace and Violence

Few words in political life are used as freely, or as loosely, as "peace." Politicians promise it, treaties claim to secure it, and protesters march for it, yet the term hides deep disagreement about what a peaceful world would actually look like. In IB Global Politics, peace is treated as an essentially contested concept: a term whose meaning is genuinely disputed because it carries competing values, not because people are simply confused. Understanding those competing meanings is the foundation for everything else in this unit, because how you define peace shapes what you count as a problem, whom you blame, and which solutions you consider legitimate.

The most influential framework comes from the Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, often called the founder of peace studies. Galtung drew