US Ranks "Low" on Global Peace Index

This is quite interesting, though not surprising. The US rates a "low" on the Global Peace Index, with a ranking of 97 (out of 140 countries).

Here are the top 10:

1. Iceland

2. Denmark

3. Norway

4. New Zealand

5. Japan

6. Ireland

7. Portugal

8. Finland

9. Luxembourg

10. Austria

This is a world map, color-coded to show the peace ranking for each country:

Here is the explanation of methodology.

Methodology and Data Sources

The indicators

Twenty-four indicators of the existence or absence of peace were chosen by the panel, which are divided into three key thematic categories. Many of the indicators have been "banded" on a scale of 1-5; qualitative indicators in the index have been scored by the Economist Intelligence Unit's extensive team of country analysts, and gaps in the quantitative data have been filled by estimates. Indicators of quantitative data such as military expenditure or jailed population have been normalised on the basis of:

x = (x-Min(x)) / (Max (x) - Min (x))

Where Min (x) and Max (x) are respectively the lowest and highest values in the 140 countries for any given indicator. The normalised value is then transformed from a 0-1 value to a 1-5 score to make it comparable with the other indicators.

Measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict

The Global Peace Index is intended as a review of the state of peace in nations over the past year, although many indicators are based on available data from the last two years. The advisory panel decided against including data reflecting a country's longer-term historical experience of domestic and international conflict on the grounds that the GPI uses authoritative statistics on ongoing civil and trans-national wars collated by institutes such as the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. These, combined with two indicators scored by the Economist Intelligence Unit's analysts, comprise five of the 24 indicators.

• Number of external and internal conflicts fought: 2001-06
• Estimated number of deaths from organised conflict (external)
• Number of deaths from organised conflict (internal)
• Level of organised conflict (internal)
• Relations with neighbouring countries

Measures of societal safety and security

Ten of the indicators assess the levels of safety and security in a society (country), ranging from the level of distrust in other citizens, to the level of respect for human rights and the rate of homicides and violent crimes. Crime data is from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Five of these indicators have been scored by the Economist Intelligence Unit's team of country analysts.

• Level of distrust in other citizens
• Number of displaced people as a percentage of the population
• Political instability
• Level of disrespect for human rights (Political Terror Scale)
• Potential for terrorist acts
• Number of homicides per 100,000 people
• Level of violent crime
• Likelihood of violent demonstrations
• Number of jailed population per 100,000 people
• Number of internal security officers and police per 100,000 people

Measures of militarization

Nine of the indicators are related to a country's military build-up - reflecting the assertion that the level of militarization and access to weapons is directly linked to how at peace a country feels internationally. Comparable data are readily available from sources such as the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).

• Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP
• Number of armed services personnel per 100,000 people
• Volume of transfers (imports) of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people
• Volume of transfers (exports) of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people
• UN Deployments 2007-08 (percentage of total armed forces)
• Non-UN Deployments 2007-08 (percentage of total armed forces)
• Aggregate number of heavy weapons per 100,000 people
• Ease of access to small arms and light weapons
• Military capability/sophistication

Weighting the index

The advisory panel apportioned scores based on the relative importance of each of the indicators on a 1-5 scale. Two sub-component weighted indices were then calculated from the GPI group of indicators, 1) a measure of how at peace a country is internally; 2) a measure of how at peace a country is externally (its state of peace beyond its borders). The overall composite score and index was then formulated by applying a weight of 60% to the measure of internal peace and 40% for external peace. The heavier weight applied to internal peace was agreed within the advisory panel, following robust debate. The decision was based on the innovative notion that a greater level of internal peace is likely to lead to, or at least correlate with, lower external conflict - in other words, if ‘charity begins at home' - so might peace.

For more information on the Global Peace Index, and Vision of Humanity, follow the links.

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