--Mahatma Gandhi

  --Mahatma Gandhi

"If you want to change the world, change yourself". --Mahatma Gandhi

After introducing different definitions and ways of looking at peace, this article presents an overview on the evolution of seven aspects of peace, which collectively lead towards a more holistic, integrative view of peace, followed by how these different aspects of peace relate to development issues facing countries around the world. In short, it is argued that there are significant ways in which working for peace and working for development overlap and are mutually reinforcing for each other, and that all of these efforts are important to creating a better future for people around the world.

This article has five parts. Part I introduces different definitions and ways of looking at peace. Part II looks at how our views of peace have evolved to include at least seven aspects. Each type of peace adds an additional dimension, leading towards a holistic, integrative view of peace. Part III summarizes how our views of peace have evolved. Part IV shows how different cultural-religious groups each contribute in different ways to different aspects of peace, illustrating how a collective vision, incorporating all of these elements, forms a stronger foundation for global peace in the 21st century. Part V discusses implications for the development of countries of this broader, more holistic view of peace.

What is peace, and how have our views of peace evolved--especially since the end of World War II? It is argued that one can look at peace in at least three ways: (1) as goals/visions for creating a more peaceful society and world in future (the focus of this paper); (2) as the means/processes used to create these goals/visions (including various forms of non-violence, including conflict resolution, management, and transformation; alternative dispute resolution, including negotiation, arbitration, and mediation; dialogue instead of debate; strategic non-violence, as well as spiritually-based non-violence); and prayer and meditation; and (3) as a feeling, i.e., how does one feel when one is peaceful? While all these aspects of peace are important, this paper (in Parts II-V) will especially focus on (1), i.e., on how our visions and goals of what a more peaceful society and world might look like have evolved over time, especially since the end of WWII.

Several other important terms are also used in the Peace Studies field to describe different aspects of peace. These include:

a) narrow definitions of peace (as absense of war) vs. broader definitions of peace (adding additional aspects of peace to one’s definition of peace). (See Parts II-IV of this article for a broader, evolving, and holistic view of peace.)

b) peacekeeping (moving in United Nations or other troops to keep the peace between formerly warring parties) vs. peacemaking (helping parties in conflict to make peace with each other, including signing a peace agreement to end the conflict) vs. peacebuilding (building the condiitons over time for the creation of a more peaceful society and world). The focus of many people today is on peacebuilding, which takes a longer term perspective.

c) the peace movement vs. the movement for peace--a distinction made by the late Dr. Kenneth Boulding. He said that the peace movement includes all the people who are actively working for peace in different areas in the world, while the movement for peace are things that indirectly lead to more interrelationships and interdependencies between people that thereby reduce the prospects of war. An example would be the old idea that no two countries that have MacDonald’s Hamburger have ever gone to war with each other.

d) the United Nations Declaration of the Year 2000 as the Year for a Culture of Peace, and the Decade 2001-2010 as the Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World. The concept of a "culture of peace" began with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Association) and was then adopted in the United Nations Declarations noted here.

Since World War II, our views of what a more peaceful society and world might look like have evolved to include at least seven aspects--including six types of outer peace, as well as inner peace--covering ever more system levels. These aspects of peace can be grouped into three broad categories, as follows.

The overall framework for looking at these seven aspects of peace thus includes

(A) War Prevention (Focusing on the Elimination of War and Physical Violence and the Maintenance of This Situation by the International System)

1. Peace as Absence of War and Physical Violence (later called "Negative Peace" by Johan Galtung).

2. Peace as Balance of Forces in the International System (Quincy Wright)

(B) Structural Conditions for Peace (Added to the Elimination of War and Physical Violence):

3. Peace as No War and No Structural Violence on Macro Levels (Galtung’s "Negative Peace" and "Positive Peace," respectively)

4. Peace as No War and No Structural Violence on Micro, as well as Macro Levels (Adding Community and Family Peace, as also essential, along with National, International, and Transnational Peace; also eliminating patriarchal values and institutions on all levels) (Feminist Peace)

(C) Holistic: Complex Systems Models and Views of Peace (that focus on unity and diversity within systems and include positive as well as negative definitions of peace in multiple areas and on multiple system levels--from the macro to the micro, including inner peace)

5. Intercultural Peace--Between All Humans and Their Diverse Cultures, Civilizations, and Religions

6. Holistic Gaia Peace--Between All Humans and the Earth or Gaia

7. Holistic Inner-Outer Peace: Adding Inner Peace--From the World’s Diverse Spiritual Traditions--To All the Forms of Outer Peace (above).

Each of these seven types of peace will now be examined in more detail. (See Smoker and Groff, 1997; and Groff, 2001, for earlier articles on these seven types of peace.)

A. Peace Thinking that Stresses War Prevention

The first two types of peace both deal with war and how to prevent it, and the need to do so if any lasting peace is to be possible in the world.

(1) Peace as Absence of War (and Physical Violence) (Galtung’s "Negative Peace")

The first perspective, peace as the absence of war, focuses on avoiding violent conflict between and within states--war and civil war. This view of peace was of utmost importance to people at the end of World War II--following two devastating world wars

--and is still widely held among general populations and politicians in most countries today. There are good reasons why this is so. Everyone knows the ravages of World War I and World War II, as well as those occurring during the so-called "Cold War," where superpowers often intervened in local conflicts, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan. Wars, including of the internal or civil type, as well as those begun by outside intervention, such as the current Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, continue to rage around the globe, and the lives of millions of people are daily threatened by the spectre of war. Under these circumstances, peace is seen as the absence of war—at least until the killing stops.

All seven definitions of peace discussed here include absence of war, but only this first one defines peace as just the absence of war, which can be seen as a precondition for any of the other types of peace becoming possible. During the Cold War, some people advocated deterring nuclear war by stockpiling nuclear weapons (and building strong second strike or retaliatory capabilities) on both sides, leading to United States-Soviet arms races. In general, however, this type of peace seeks to build trust between countries and to reduce or eliminate dangers of nuclear weapons--on earth and now in space, as well as conventional weapons, chemical and biological weapons (the poor man’s nuclear weapons), land mines, and any weapons endangering human life and taking resources away from other life-enhancing uses. It also seeks to reduce dangers of nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and accidental nuclear war.

Johan Galtung (a famous peace researcher) called this first type of peace "negative peace," which was also extended later to include not only eliminating war, but also eliminating physical violence. Galtung also distinguished this "negative peace" from what he called "positive peace," which was eliminating structural peace (see peace # 3).

(2) Peace as Balance of Forces in the International System

Quincy Wright, in his path breaking work, A Study of War (1941), stated the view that peace is a dynamic balance involving political, economic, social, cultural, and technological factors, and that war occurred when this balance broke down in the international system. The international system includes the overall pattern of relationships between states and International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) and domestic public opinion within a state--the community level of analysis. Any significant change in one of the factors involved in the peace balance would require corresponding changes in other factors to restore the balance. For example, Robert Oppenheimer, the much misunderstood "father of the atomic bomb," insisted on continuing to develop the bomb so that a global political institution, the United Nations, would have to be created to help control the new global military technology.

This is a systems view of peace in which the international system--if it can dynamically adjust to changes as they occur within the system--is the best solution for preventing war and preserving peace in the world. Because the number and types of actors in the international system--nation-states, international governmental organizations or IGOs, non-governmental organizations or NGOs, multinational corporations or MNCs, and now grassroots local communities through a movement for a U.N. People’s Assembly-- has greatly increased since the United Nations was formed in 1945, this type of peace also looks at proposals for reform of the international system and the United Nations itself. Much discussion has also focused on issues of global governance, as increasing issues require global cooperation in our increasingly interdependent world—‘If’ solutions are to be found. A related issue focuses on creating civil societies and democratic participation within countries as the foundation for more peaceful relations between states and more citizen participation in the international system (Boulding, 1990).

B. Peace Thinking that Stresses Eliminating Macro and/or Micro Physical and Structural Violence

The next two types of peace each deal with and add social-structural dimensions of peace--including macro international and translational levels, and then micro community, family, and individual levels--to the efforts at eliminating physical violence and war (noted under A above).

(3) Peace as Negative Peace (No War) and Positive Peace (No Structural Violence) on Macro Levels

Johan Galtung (1969, 1990) expanded our concept of peace to include both "negative peace" and "positive peace"--two terms now standardized within the Peace Studies field. He defined "negative peace" as the absence of war and physical violence and "positive peace" as the absence of "structural violence", defined in terms of avoidable deaths and suffering caused by the way large scale social, economic, and political structures are organized—often in inequitable ways. Thus if people starve to death when there is food to feed them somewhere in the world, or die from sickness when there is medicine to cure them (such as AIDS today), then structural violence exists since alternative structures could, in theory, prevent such deaths.

This type of peace thus deals with social and economic justice issues and with protecting basic human rights, as enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948). Peace under this rubric involves both positive peace and negative peace being present in the global economy, which is influenced by non-state actors, such as International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). In this type of peace, the structural inequities in the international system itself are seen as major obstacles to world peace versus peace # 2, where the international system, and international institutions such as the United Nations, are seen as the solution for creating and preserving world peace.

(4) Feminist Peace: Eliminating Physical and Structural Violence on Both Micro (Community. Family. and Individual) Levels and Macro Levels, and Eliminating Patriarchal Values, Attitudes and Institutions that Block People’s Opportunities on All Levels

During the 1970’s and 80’s, a fourth perspective was ushered in by feminist peace researchers, who extended both negative peace and positive peace to include eliminating both physical and structural violence down to the individual level. The new definition of peace includes not only abolishing macro level organized violence, such as war, but also eliminating micro level unorganized violence, such as rape or domestic violence in war or in the home. The concept of structural violence includes personal/micro and macro-level structures that harm or discriminate against particular individuals, ethnic communities, races or genders, thereby denying them opportunities available to other groups. This feminist peace model came to include the elimination of all types of violence (physical and structural) on all levels, from the individual, family, and community levels on up to the transnational level, as well as the elimination of patriarchal values, attitudes and institutions on all levels, as necessary conditions for a peaceful planet.

(Brock-Utne, 1985, 1989, 1990; and Reardon, 1990, 1993, and 1996).

C. Peace Thinking that Stresses Holistic. Complex Systems

The last three types of peace all deal with holistic complex systems based on the unity and interdependence of diverse, interacting parts. Intercultural peace celebrates the diverse cultural forms human beings exhibit on this planet, and Gaia peace honors the diversity of life forms and their interdependencies in the single living system Earth. These two types of holistic peace focus on the external world. The last type of peace, drawing on the world’s rich spiritual traditions, adds inner peace to all the forms of outer peace, and is thus the most comprehensive view of peace.

(5) Intercultural Peace: Peace Between Peoples and Their Diverse Cultures, Civilizations, and Religions

The interaction between cultures (defined broadly as socially-learned behavior shared by people with common identities, values, lifestyles, and histories) has accelerated dramatically during recent centuries and decades. Too often the militarily stronger or economically more powerful culture has subordinated the militarily weaker or economically poorer one. Yet the world is becoming more interdependent each day and an honoring of the rich cultural diversity of the planet is an essential component of a future peaceful world.

While internal wars and cultural and ethnic violence have become a global phenomena and focus for social science and peace research, especially in the post Cold War period (Huntington, 1993, and 1996; and Galtung, 1990), wars with outside intervention--as in Afghanistan and Iraq today, have also polarized the world and destabilized countries already suffering from internal divisions. The consequences of these wars will be with us for years.

Despite the above, relations between cultural, ethnic, racial, and religious groups can also be positive, creative experiences that enrich the lives of everyone involved. The fields of intercultural communication (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1998; Storti, 1999; and Groff, 2005a and 2005 b) and interreligious dialogue (Beversluis, 2000; and Groff, 2005a and 2005b), as well as other prejudice reduction techniques, provide people with positive tools for dealing with cultural diversity.

Intercultural Peace requires that everyone realize that every culture is a different learned map or version of reality (not ultimate reality) and that every culture has particular gifts (based on their geographic and historical experiences and learning) that they bring to the table of humanity today. Intercultural peace requires the positive co-evolution of cultures at both macro and micro levels and the recognition that the whole diverse global cultural mix is a cause of strength for humanity, in the same way that the rich diversity of plants and living creatures are seen as a strength for the ecosystem.

(6) Holistic Gaia Peace: Peace With the World and the Environment

Gaia Peace is named after Gaia, the ancient Greek goddess of earth. In addition to the earlier types of peace, Holistic Gaia Peace--peace with Mother Earth and all her diverse ecosystems--also sees the Earth as a complex, self-organizing living system or being (Lovelock, 1991, in his Gaia Hypothesis; Lawrence, 1990; and Sahtouris, 1989), of which humans are a part (not separate), and places all forms of peace between people in this broader context.

Gaia Peace therefore requires peace between people at all levels of analysis--from the individual and family levels to the global cultural level, while also placing a very high value on the relationship of humans to bioenvironmental systems--the environmental level of analysis. Peace with the environment, sustainable development (that does not take from nature at a faster rate than it can replenish itself) and responsible stewardship of the earth are seen as central to this type of peace. Without the food, energy, and resources provided by earth, there could be no human or other life on the planet and also no human economic systems.

Human beings are seen as one of many species inhabiting the earth, and the preservation of the planet is seen as the most important goal. The increasing extinction of other species, as the human population on earth keeps increasing and inhabiting more of the land area of earth, also cries out for humans to wake up to what we are creating. Global climate change is another warning to humanity, along with various forms of pollution. Indigenous peoples--who see themselves as part of nature for centuries and as a voice for the earth--also warn us that the earth is dying in various places today because of our human neglect and greed. Thus human rights must be expanded to acknowledge rights of the earth--our life support system, on which all of our futures depend.

In some cases, the Gaia concept is interpreted scientifically, in terms of a complex biochemical, energy system. In other cases, the inner, spiritual aspects of Gaia are also seen as essential, and Gaia or earth is also seen as a sacred, living being or Goddess.

(7) Holistic Inner and Outer Peace

This last type of peace includes all of the outer aspects of peace (covered above), as well as adding inner peace as an essential component and precondition for a peaceful world. While inner peace can be just psychological, it frequently has a spiritual foundation that acknowledges some spiritual or transcendent aspect to life beyond just the physical world of our outer senses. Inner Peace then draws on the world’s rich spiritual-religious traditions, including their mystical aspects--with mysticism being defined as "a direct experience of ultimate reality" (Carmody and Carmody, 1996), and uses different forms of prayer and meditation (including breathing techniques, chanting, and various forms of yoga) as tools to become centered within and reach deeper states of inner peace.

This approach to peace recognizes different dimensions and levels of consciousness related to inner peace, just as different aspects of outer peace have been elaborated above. For example, Eastern spiritual traditions talk about seven chakras, or energy centers, in the body that are each related to different types and levels of consciousness. (See also Wilber, 1996, especially Chap. 9, on the evolution of consciousness.)

This spiritual dimension is expressed in different ways, depending on one’s cultural and religious background and context, and draws on centuries of experience by spiritual masters from the East, indigenous cultures, and some more ancient Western cultures, where such traditions are more developed and honored than in modern Western culture. Even in the West, however, there is now much greater interest in such topics, including a greater openness to exploring such inner dimensions of consciousness and peace. Western medicine and hospitals are also recognizing the important role of stress reduction techniques, such as meditation, in healing, due to an increasing recognition of the mind-body connection.

Eastern cultures and religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, have produced many mystics, avatars, and spiritual seers who have focused on the importance of inner peace as an essential condition for creating a more peaceful world. In this view, all aspects of outer peace, including one’s perception and experience of the world, reflect one’s inner state of consciousness and must therefore be based on inner peace.

As the world continues to change, it is clear that our concepts of peace have also continued to evolve over time, especially since the end of World War II. While many people within the peace studies and peace education fields have focused on one or more, but not all of the above aspects of peace, it is clear that if one takes all of these different aspects of peace collectively together, a more holistic, integrative view of peace emerges, which has the following characteristics. (Smoker and Groff, 1997; and Groff, 2001)

* Peace is a multi-factored process, focusing on many different substantive aspects and dimensions of peace, not just a single factor--the absence of war.

* Peace is multileveled, dealing with multiple system levels, from macro to micro levels in the external world, as well as now also inner peace.

* Seeing peace on multiple system levels also means that many more different types of actors are involved in the peacebuilding process besides just states, who are the primary actors in peace as absence of war. 9/11 is a good example illustrating the increasing importance of non-state actors in the international system—including in peace and wartime situations.

* Peace includes not only six aspects of outer peace in the world, but also inner peace as an essential component for creating a more peaceful world in the 21st century, with different dimensions and levels of consciousness and inner peace now also open for further exploration.

* Peace is defined not only in negative terms--what one wants to eliminate (such as physical or structural violence), but also in positive terms (focusing on what one wants to create in a positive sense). As Fred Polak said, "A society without positive images of itself is doomed." (Polak, 1973) If one wants to create a better future, it is not enough to just eliminate the negative; one must also clearly visualize, and commit one’s life to, alternative, positive images of what one wants to create.

* Peace must honor both unity AND diversity, interdependence AND pluralism, of the world’s diverse peoples, races, cultures, civilizations, ethnic groups, nations, and religions, as well as of the multiple species on earth; neither homogenized unity alone nor diversity only (without seeing what also connects us) will create the conditions for a more peaceful world.

* A holistic view of peace thus explores how these multiple aspects of peace fit together into some kind of dynamic and coherent, integrated, whole systems view of peace.

In conclusion, the emergence of more holistic peace paradigms in peace research--whether intercultural, environmental, and/or spiritual--has included an increasing emphasis on positive conceptions of peace. In part, this is because of our realization that, whatever our nationality, culture or religious tradition, we are all interconnected and interdependent. Viewed from space, planet Earth is a beautiful blue-green sphere, without national borders, but with land, water, ice caps, deserts, forests, and clouds supporting one interdependent planetary web of life based on multiple, interacting ecological systems. We as individuals and groups are but a part of the planet, as the planet itself is a part of the solar system, galaxy and universe. This whole systems mindset enables an appreciation of the interdependence of species in the global ecosystem, of particular cultural meanings in the context of the total global cultural system, and of particular faiths in the rich diversity of global spiritual and religious traditions--all contributing to the tapestry of the whole. The whole is more than the sum of the parts, and the greater the variety of the parts, the richer the expression of the global whole.

Part II above focuses largely on how our concepts of peace have evolved, beginning with Western Peace Research and then adding elements from global peace research. It is noteworthy that inner peace was the last aspect of peace to be added in largely Western peace research, and that Gaia Peace was added not long before Inner Peace. Both of these last two aspects of peace are the particular focus and concern of different non-Western cultures and religions, who have thus most forcefully advocated the importance of adding these aspects to any overall concept of peace. Indeed, if one starts with an Eastern cultural and religious perspective, such as Hinduism or Buddhism, one always begins with inner peace, as the necessary precondition for peace in the world, with inner peace effecting what type of external world one was creating and experiencing. Similarly, if one starts with the earth-based cultures and religions (including indigenous spiritual traditions and followers of the goddess), who are closely tied to Mother Earth, who see all of nature as alive, and who see their role as caretakers for the earth, which is currently endangered by increasing human activity and occupation of the planet, one would begin with Gaia Peace as the most fundamental and important aspect of peace. Likewise, Western cultures and religions, being activists seeking progress in the world, traditionally begin with support for aspects of outer peace in the world—the focus of the first five aspects of peace.

Fig. 2 (based on an adaptation of the yin-yang symbol from Taoism) shows an alternative model of how these different aspects of peace are all dynamically interacting with each other all the time.

What is significant is that the collective vision of peace that we end up with--when we add the particular focus and concern of earth-based religions and cultures (Gaia Peace # 6), Eastern cultures and religions (Inner Peace # 7), and Western cultures and religions (Peace # 1-5, focusing on different culturally and socially-learned aspects of peace in the external world)--is a much more powerful and comprehensive vision of the foundations for a peaceful world than any of those visions would be alone. As we enter the 21st century in an increasingly interdependent world, it is fitting that our conceptions of peace also draw from all the major cultural and spiritual-religions traditions on the planet to create a synergistic vision that is more powerful than any of us could have created on our own. In this sense, there is much that we can all learn, and are learning, from each other about peace, and this cross fertilization of ideas can only benefit humanity and all life in future.

People do not always explore the relationship between development issues and peace issues. Nonetheless, it is clear in looking at these seven aspects of peace (above) that they each have important implications for economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental development of countries around the world. A few of these implications are outlined below.

(1) Peace as Absence of War (and Physical Violence) (Galtung’s "Negative Peace"):

It is very clear that when countries spend large amounts of their government budgets on the military--for defensive or offensive purposes--that this takes physical and human resources away from other pressing development issues. This is even more the case in countries with pressing development concerns and limited national budgets to accomplish their development goals. In this regard, it would perhaps be signficant to develop some kind of index for different countries based on the percentage of their government budget spent on military/defense issues versus on other development issues, and how this then correlates with rates of economic development for each country. Development in developed countries, such as the U.S., can also be greatly effected by war, such as in the current situation with the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, where the defense budget and U.S. overall budget deficit have ballooned, taking resources away from many other areas, leaving huge deficits for future generations to pay off, and greatly polarizing not only the world, but the U.S. domestically.

It is interesting to note that war, and cultures and economies of war, have existed since at least ancient civilizations and empires when one civilization conquered another and made them into slaves. U.S. President Eisenhower--a former Allied Commander in World War II—warned during his Presidency of the dangers of a "military-industrial complex" and economy, which seems to have become the major obsession and focus of the Bush-Cheney Administration. Militant Islamist views, of Bin Laden and others, are equally black and white worldviews, which are both inappropriate—in this writer’s view—with an increasingly interdependent world, where cooperation on vital issues and tolerance for different cultures, religions, and worldviews, instead of dominance, is what is needed. The real challenge is how to transform this war mentality and culture into a culture of peace and non-violence, which will also free up resources for other purposes, such as social, economic, and political development of countries.

(2) Peace as Balance of Forces in the International System:

Given that the United Nations is the major forum today where leaders of different countries around the world can come together and agree on policies, including development policies, and that the United Nations regularly collects data from all countries to monitor their levels of development, and key development issues, it is clear that the state of the United Nations is critical to the future development of countries around the world. One great example of data collected and published each year on different countries, and key issues effecting their development, is the Human Development Report (published annually by Oxford University Press). It is also clear that when conflicts between countries are not able to be resolved through the United Nations or other multilateral means that sometimes these conflicts lead to violence and wars, which again divert resources of countries away from other development issues.

Another important issue effecting the viability of the United Nations itself is whether member countries of the U.N. pay their dues on a regular basis, or not. This has not always been the case, also undermining the ability of the United Nations to carry out all of its functions effectively—in development, environmental, and peacekeeping areas. When any of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council veto a peacekeeping operation, as not in its national interest, then such operations are also effectively thwarted.

Even though the ability of the United Nations to act in the world is limited, and countries have not given up their sovereignty to the United Nations, nonetheless, issues of global governance (not global government) remain high on the global agenda. Global governance deals with how countries can find ways to cooperate with each other and reach a consensus on a whole range of urgent policy issues confronting the world.

(3) Peace as Negative Peace (No War) and Positive Peace (No Structural Violence) on Macro Levels: (Galtung’s Negative and Positive Peace):

This type of peace adds the goal of eliminating structural violence to the goal of eliminating physical violence and war, which effects development in the following ways. Eliminating structural violence and promoting social justice and human rights are important aspects of any society’s development, which ideally needs to include not only economic, but also social aspects of development, which can open up educational and employment opportunities for all the diverse citizens of a given society and country. When significant segments of a population in a country are denied opportunities for an education or jobs, that will enable them to better their lives and support their families, then the contributions that these people could be making to a society’s development is lost, and the development of society as a whole is lessened. Societies which ignore social justice issues also lay the foundations for future conflicts, which can divert resources from that society’s development efforts until such conflicts are resolved The information age also requires an educated and skilled workforce, which is best drawn from all the diverse groups that make up any society.

(4) Feminist Peace: Eliminating Physical and Structural Violence on Micro (Community. Family. and Individual) Levels, as well as Macro Levels, and Eliminating Patriarchal Values, Attitudes and Institutions that Block People’s Opportunities on All Levels:

It is very clear that the status of women in a society has a direct effect on the development prospects of any society. In short, when women are educated, that effects how they raise their children and helps in the education of their children, thus also increasing the opportunities their children will have to get jobs that will help in the economic and social development of their communities and country. When women become educated, they also usually voluntarily have less children, thus also increasing the opportunities for a better life for their children. Educated women also increasingly join the workforce and contribute to the social and economic development of their countries, as well as contributing as breadwinners to their own families.

(5) Intercultural Peace: Peace Between All Humans and Their Diverse Cultures and Religions (as Part of Culture):

One of the largest sources of conflict in the world today is interethnic conflict within countries, as well as between countries since 9/11 and the onset of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. Interethnic conflicts increased once the Cold War ended, especially in formerly Communist Bloc countries, where people sought new identities and often went back to their ancient tribal identities, thereby exacerbating conflicts that were submerged during the Cold War days. Since 9/11/01, there has also been an increase in terrorism by non-state actors (such as Al Qaeda)--usually against governmental targets, such as the United States and Israel, as well as an increase in counter-terrorism efforts--usually by governments who have been the target of such terrorist efforts. In these cases, interethnic, intercultural, and interreligious factors are playing an important role, even though other factors are also involved in these conflicts. Iraq itself has descended into near civil war—especially between Sunnis and Shiites, making the formation of a strong national government much more difficult.

It is clear that making the world safe for cultural and religious diversity--both within and between countries and groups--remains a very high priority for the world, which will effect both the prospects for peace and for development of countries in future. As long as interethnic-type conflicts continue and are also transformed into violent conflicts, peoples and governments will continue to focus their resources on these security issues rather than on other development issues. Healthy economic, social, and political development also requires that people from diverse backgrounds learn to live together in peace and with respect for each other’s traditions. It is also important that education and development opportunities are available to all the diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural groups that make up a society. As the development of a country moves beyond the agricultural and industrial ages into the information age, having educated, trained, white-collar workers--including from all the diverse cultural groups making up any given society--becomes increasingly important for the functioning of that society.

(6) Holistic Gaia Peace: Peace Between Humans and the Earth or Gaia:

The United Nations has held various global conferences on the environment, and these conferences have concluded that countries around the world all need to focus on dealing with environmental pollution issues, but that if developing countries are to be able to afford to do this, then they must get financial assistance from more developed countries of the North. Without this assistance, the other development needs of developing countries will take precedence over environmental issues, given the limited governmental budgets of developing countries and their other pressing development needs. (See, for example, the U.N. Report on Environment and Development, also called "The Brundtland Report," named after the Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Brundtland, who headed the U.N. Commission that researched and wrote this report. See also Agenda 21, the report that came out of the U.N. Environmental Summit.)

Global warming is also threatening the planet in the view of almost all scientists. Many species are also becoming extinct, due to humans taking over more and more of the planet. These can both have huge Impacts on the development of countries. Growing seasons can change, coastal cities can be flooded, and ecological systems can collapse as species leave their normal environments looking for food. These can all pose huge challenges for the development of countries and are an increasingly important and urgent danger threatening the human and planetary future, if not addressed.

(7) Holistic Inner and Outer Peace: Adding Inner Peace (From the World’s Diverse Spiritual Traditions) To All the Forms of Outer Peace (above):

The relationship of inner peace to development may not be as apparent, at first, as some of the other aspects of outer peace are to development. Nonetheless, there are some important relationships here. First, when people are not conscious of or responsible for their inner thoughts and feelings, especially their negative thoughts and feelings, these can be projected out onto other people in the form of hatred and prejudice, which increases social conflict and divisiveness in society, not aiding the development of all the people in any given society. Instead, elites and dominant groups in power are favored. Secondly, when people are spiritually-based (in contrast with religious dogmatism), part of that perspective on life includes feeling connected to all of life, including other people. Such sensitivity to other people’s suffering and difficulties should hopefully be translated into public policies that help in the development efforts of all people in a given society, not just the elites or those in power.

In conclusion, it is clear from the above discussion that peace issues are integrally related to development issues. A few of these relationships have been explored. Undoubtedly, many more exist. It is important to explore these relationships in more depth and to educate scholars, peace researchers and activists, and development officials and community members about these relationships, thereby hopefully also influencing development policies of countries, to the benefit of all the citizens of a country, and thereby the world.

* Boulding, Elise. Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World. (Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution). Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1990.

* Galtung, Johan. Peace By Peaceful Means. London: Sage Publications, 1996.

* Groff, Linda. "Seven Concepts in the Evolution of Peace Thinking," in Peacebuilding: Newsletter of the Peace Education Commission of the International Peace Research Association, Vol. 3, No. 1 (January 2001).

* Polak, Fred. The Image of the Future. New York: Elsevier, 1973. Translated and Abridged Edition by Elise Boulding.

* Smoker, Paul, and Groff, Linda, "Peace--An Evolving Idea: Implications for Future Generations," in Future Generations Journal (August 1997).

* Smoker, Paul; Davies, Ruth; and Munske, Barbara, Eds. A Reader in Peace Studies. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990.

* UNESCO, "Manifesto 2000 for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence." Paris: UNESCO, 2000. <http://www3.unesco.org/manifesto2000>

* Smoker, Paul, and Groff, Linda, "Peace as Absence of War: War, Nuclear Weapons, and Nuclear Deterrence," Web Page/Paper.

* Many books on War and Peace, and on Arms Control and Disarmament.

* Smoker, Paul, and Groff, Linda, "Peace as Balance of Forces in the International System," Web Page/Paper.

* United Nations. Human Development Report. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, annual publication.

* Wright, Quincy. A Study of War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941.

* Galtung, Johan, "Violence, Peace, and Peace Research," Journal of Peace Research, No. 3 (1969).

* Galtung, Johan, "Violence and Peace," in A Reader in Peace Studies, Ed. by Paul Smoker, Ruth Davies, and Barbara Munske. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990, pp.

9-14. This is a shorter version of the 1969 article by Galtung.

* Soros, George, "The Capitalist Threat," Atlantic Monthly (February 1997), pp. 45-58.

* United Nations, "Universal Declaration on Human Rights." New York: U.N., 1948.

* United Nations, "Fiftieth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948-1998." <http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html>

* Boulding, Elise. Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History. (Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution). Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000.

* Brock-Utne, Birgit. Education for Peace: A Feminist Perspective. New York: Pergamon Press, 1985.

* Brock-Utne, Birgit. Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Peace Education. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1989.

* Brock-Utne, Birgit, "Feminist Perspectives on Peace" in A Reader in Peace Studies, Ed. by Paul Smoker, Ruth Davies, and Barbara Munske. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990, pp. 144-149.

* Reardon, Betty, "Feminist Concepts of Peace and Security" in A Reader in Peace Studies, Ed. by Paul Smoker, Ruth Davies, and Barbara Munske. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990, pp.

* Reardon, Betty. Women and Peace: Feminist Visions of Global Security. SUNY Series on Global Conflict and Peace Education, 1993.

* Reardon, Betty. Sexism and the War System. Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution, 1996.

* Beversluis, Joel, Ed. Sourcebook of the World’s Religions: An Interfaith Guide to Religion and Spirituality. Third Ed., Novato, CA: New World Library, 2000.

* Galtung, Johan. "Cultural Violence," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 27, No. 3 (1990).

* Huntington, Samuel P. "The Clash of Civilizations?: Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993).

* Huntington, Samuel P. The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

* Trompenaars, Fons, and Hampden-Turner, Charles. Riding the Waves of Culture. Second Ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

* Storti, Craig. Figuring Foreigners Out: A Practical Guide. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press, 1999.

* Groff, Linda. "Intercultural Communication, Interreligious Dialogue, and Peace," in Futures: The Journal of Forecasting, Planning and Policy, Published by Pergamon, No. 34 (2002), pp. 701-716.

* Groff, Linda. "Insights on the Evolution of Cultures, Civilizations, and Religions: Past, Present, and Future,’ in How Evolution Works. Bellevue, WA: Foundation For the Future, 2005a, pp. 139-166.

* Groff, Linda. "The Challenge of Cultural and Religious Diversity and Peacebuilding in an Interdependent World," Futures Research Quarterly, published by the World Future Society, 2005b, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter 2005), pp. 23-54. A somewhat longer version of this article is available from the author.

* Toynbee, Arnold. A Study of History. First Abridged One Volume Ed., Illustrated, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1972.

* United Religions Initiative, "URI Charter." San Francisco, CA: United Religions Initiative, 2001. <http://www.uri.org/charter>

* Gore, Al. Film, "An Inconvenient Truth," on the dangers of global warming (2005).

* Earth Charter Secretariat, Earth Council, "The Earth Charter." San Jose, Costa Rica: 2000. <http://www.earthcharter.org>

* Lawrence E. Joseph. Gaia: The Growth of an Idea. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

* Lovelock, James E. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Fifth Ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

* Sahtouris, Elisabet. Gaia: The Human Journey from Chaos to Cosmos. New York: Pocket Books, 1989.

* United Nations. Environment and Development ("The Brundtland Report"). New York: United Nations.

* Carmody, Denise Lardner, and Carmody, John Tully. Mysticism: Holiness East and West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

* Dreher, Diane. The Tao of Inner Peace. Harper Perennial, 1991.

* Mische, Patricia, "Toward a Global Spirituality," Rev. Ed. on 25th Anniversary of Global Education Associates, New York, 1966, pp. 2-12.

* Smoker, Paul, and Groff, Linda, "Spirituality, Religion, Culture, and Peace: Exploring the Foundations for Inner-Outer Peace in the Twenty-First Century," International Journal of Peace Studies, Vol. I, No. 1 (January 1996), pp. 57-113.

* Thich Nhat Hanh. Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. Foreword by H. H. The Dalai Lama. London: Bantam Books, 1991.

* What Is Enlightenment Magazine. Covers many spiritual issues as these relate to developments in the world and human evolution.

* Wilber, Ken. A Brief History of Everything. Boston: Shambhala, 1996; and numerous other books on the evolution of consciousness as part of four quadrants he explores—based on individual vs. collective areas, and inner vs. outer aspects of our lives.

Dr. Linda Groff is Professor of Political Science and Future Studies and the Coordinator of the Behavioral Science Undergraduate Program at California State University at Dominguez Hills. She is also Director of Global Options Consulting which focuses on global futures, peace and intercultural/interreligious synergy.

Web: http://www.csudh.edu/global_options/

This article for Journal of Globalisation for the Common Good (2007) was based on a paper for the Annual Conference of Globalisation for the Common Good held in Istanbul, Turkey, July 5-8, 2007.