Tag: Group on International Perspectives on Governmental Aggression and Peace

What does terrorism mean to you?

Posted on by kathiemm
Banner used by FBI. Image in public domain, from Wikimedia Commons..

Before proceeding, write your own definition of “terrorism.” Then you can compare it with other definitions from ordinary people from over 40 countries around the world who responded to the Group on International Perspectives on Governmental Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP) survey.

This study revealed that “terrorism,” like “war,” is defined in many different ways, but those definitions fall into several major thematic categories.

Some definitions focus on perceived causes or motivations for terrorism:

  • “People who fight for idealism ”
  • “Last resort in getting global response: e.g. Palestine, N. Ireland”
  • “An expression of senseless rage against innocent people to get a point across”

Another group of definitions focus on the methods or processes of terrorism:

  • “it is a kind of weapon used by anti-social elements”
  • “violently attack someone or something outside the bounds of normal warfare”

Some definitions focus on the outcomes of terrorism:

  • “When innocent people die because of someone else’s beliefs, either political or religious”
  • “Activities linked to physical, economic and psychological damage ”
  • “It is what destroys peace.”

A final prominent theme involves value judgments concerning the nature of terrorism:

  • “ Unacceptable way of reaching your goal, kind of illness”
  • “Barbarism”
  • “An insidious irrational cowardly style of murder”

What do you think of these definitions? Does your definition fall into one of these thematic categories? Would you change your definition in any way now that you have seen these definitions?

In our earlier post on definitions of war, we ended with several questions about gender differences in types of definitions. The answers to these questions varied by geographical and cultural context.

For example, women from English-speaking countries (the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Australia) were more likely than men from those countries to make moral judgments concerning war, whereas men from those countries focused more on criteria for calling a conflict a war. Women from Latin America were significantly more likely than Latin American men to refer to concrete outcomes of war in their definitions.

Are any of these differences surprising to you?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Government’s right to invade: National differences in views

Posted on by kathiemm

In response to the attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States and its allies waged war against Afghanistan. The Gallup International Terrorism Poll 2001 showed that 88% of the American public agreed with this military action.

In the months preceding the start of the Iraq war, national support for invasion never dropped below 55%, probably reflecting the Bush administration’s framing of the Iraq war as an extension of the “war on terror.”

Protest in Spain against Iraq war
Protest in Spain against Iraq war. Photo by Francisco M. Marzoa Alonso; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 license.

In contrast, the Flash Eurobarometer 151 surveyed citizens of the 15 European Union nations in 2003 and found strong opposition in some nations to the U.S. involvement in Iraq. In particular, Greeks and Spaniards viewed the U.S. as the greatest threat to peace–more threatening than Iran and North Korea.

The Group on International Perspectives on Government Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP) administered the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS) to ordinary people from the U.S., Greece, and Spain in 2005. We found that Americans rated a governmental right to undertake an invasion much more highly than Greeks and Spaniards.

In regard to specific arguments made by the participants in support of their ratings concerning the acceptability of invasion:

  • Significantly more Greeks and Spaniards than Americans said war is outdated or there are better ways to solve conflicts.
  • Significantly more Americans than Spaniards referred to “defense” in their explanations, including references to preemptive action in response to a threat.

What do you make of the findings of this study? Is war outdated? Are there better ways of solving conflicts?

Why might Americans seem to be more worried about defending themselves than Spaniards and Greeks? Why might there be national differences in views concerning preemptive strikes?

Do you think that if a new sample of Americans, Greeks, and Spaniards were to be asked today about the US involvement in Iraq, their opinions would have changed?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

[Note: This post was adapted from an article by Maria Daskalopoulos, Tanvi Zaveri and Kathie Malley-Morrison, in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Winter, 2006.]

Negative versus positive definitions of peace

Posted on by kathiemm

Our research team, the Group on International Perspectives on Governmental Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP), values the distinction between positive and negative peace: Peace symbol

  • Negative peace refers to definitions that identify peace with the absence of war or armed conflict.
  • Positive peace refers to definitions that focus on the prerequisites and criteria for a sustainable peace, including respect for universal human rights (which are not synonymous with the legal rights granted by any particular legal authority).

According to GIPGAP’s research, to be discussed more in later posts, in the U.S. it is the negative peace definitions that predominate. Why is this?

The major public media in this country certainly do little to promote the idea of peace per se, let alone positive peace.

A report released by the Institute for Economics and Peace in October 2010 described a study regarding violence and peace in television programs. Included in the research were 37 news and current affairs programs from 23 networks in 15 countries, including the United States.

Overall, only 1.6% of the stories examined in the study considered issues of positive peace. However, there was some variation across the countries in amount of media time devoted to issues of violence. According to the report, “Of the 10 TV programs with the highest level of violence coverage, 8 are from the United States or the United Kingdom.”

This research suggests both a lack of interest in peace as a product of respect for human rights and a conviction that “violence sells.” Therefore, is it surprising that when most Americans think about peace, they see it primarily as just an absence of war?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology