Violence, Peace, and Peace Research Summary

General Definition: Violence occurs when human beings are influenced to the extent that their actual somatic and mental realisations fall below their potential realisations.
The Gap: Violence is the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual; it is that which increases or impedes the decrease of this distance ( $\text{Violence} = \text{Potential} - \text{Actual}$ ).
Avoidability: If a condition is avoidable (e.g., dying from tuberculosis today versus in the eighteenth century), its presence constitutes violence.
Physical vs. Psychological: Physical violence works on the body (biological capability or movement constraint), while psychological violence works on the soul (lies, brainwashing, threats).
Negative vs. Positive Influence: Influence can be exertion through punishment (negative) or through rewards that narrow action ranges (positive/manipulatory).
Subjectivity (Direct vs. Structural):
- Personal (Direct) Violence: There is a concrete actor/subject committing the act.
- Structural (Indirect) Violence: Violence is built into the social structure and manifests as unequal power or life chances (social injustice).
Manifest vs. Latent: Manifest violence is observable; latent violence refers to unstable equilibrium where violence could easily emerge.

Social Injustice: Structural violence is synonymous with social injustice, involving skewed income distributions, varying literacy levels, and unequal medical services.
Sustaining Mechanisms: Galtung identifies six factors that maintain inegalitarian distributions:
1. Linear ranking order.
2. Acyclical interaction patterns.
3. Correlation between rank and centrality.
4. Congruence between systems.
5. Concordance between ranks.
6. High rank coupling between levels.
Stability: Structural violence is essentially static and silent, whereas personal violence represents change and dynamism.

Negative Peace: Defined as the absence of personal (direct) violence.
Positive Peace: Defined as the absence of structural violence, also referred to as social justice.
Relationship: Peace is not merely the reduction of overt violence but requires "vertical development" and egalitarian distribution of power and resources.
Theoretical Framework:
- Negative peace is more closely associated with Conflict Research.
- Positive peace is more closely associated with Development Research.

Core Objective: Research into the conditions—past, present, and future—of realizing both negative and positive peace.
Pluralism: Peace research must avoid one-sidedness. Focusing only on negative peace risks accepting "law and order" suppression, while focusing only on social justice may rationalize the use of personal violence.
Strategies: Includes nonviolent action, associative nonviolence (for equals), and dissociative policies (for exploited groups).