Conceptions of peace

Galtung's negative and positive peace framework is the most widely used today. Negative peace refers to the absence of direct violence. Positive peace refers to the absence of indirect and structural violence, and is the concept that most peace and conflict researchers adopt. ^[13]

Several conceptions of peace have been instrumental in establishing an intellectual climate in which peace research might prosper. ^[14]

• The first is the line of rational reasoning that peace is a natural/ social condition, whereas war is not. The premise is simple for peace researchers: to generate and present enough information so that a rational group of decision makers will seek to avoid war and conflict.
• Second, the view that war is 'sinful' is held by a variety of religious traditions worldwide, often most strongly by minority sects which do not maintain political power: Quakers, Mennonites and other Peace churches within Christianity; Jains within the religious life of India, Islam(violence itself is a crime in the Quran) and many sects of Buddhism.
• Third is pacifism: the view that peace is to be a prime force in human behaviour.
• A further approach is that there is not one conception of peace, but many.

There have been many offerings on conceptions of peace/ or multiple forms of peace. These range from the well known works of Kant, Locke,Rousseau, Paine, on various liberal international and constitutional and plans for peace. Variations and additions have been developed more recently by scholars such as Raymond Aron, Edward Azar, John Burton, Martin Ceadal, Kevin Dooley, Johan Galtung, Michael Howard, Vivienne Jabri, Jean-Paul Lederach, Roger Mac Ginty, Hugh Miall, David Mitrany, Oliver Ramsbotham, Anatol Rapoport, Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, Oliver Richmond, S.P. Udayakumar, Tom Woodhouse, others mentioned above and many more. Democratic peace, liberal peace, sustainable peace, civil peace, and other concepts are regularly used in such work.