Happiness as a measurement and goal of peacebuilding

Alpaslan Ozerdem

doi:10.1080/14781158.2019.1610372

Happiness as a measurement and goal of peacebuilding

Alpaslan Ozerdem

Vice-Chancellor's Office (VCO)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

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Abstract

The Global Peace Index (GPI) measures how ‘peaceful’ countries are, while the World Happiness Report (WHR) index measures how ‘happy’ their citizens are. But when compared side by side, the two sets of findings conspicuously do not match – apparently indicating that people who live in peace do not always live in happiness. To grapple with this interesting dissonance, let us assume that happiness is the ultimate goal in life – as proposed by the Benthamite philosophy – and that peace is therefore an instrumental good, much like health, freedom and autonomy. Once this is taken on principle, it follows that peacebuilding’s overall goal should be to make sure conflict-affected communities are happy. This paper investigates what the results of peacebuilding would look like if they were measured using the GPI and WHR at the same time. Using the former Yugoslavia countries as a case study, it asks whether these countries’ post-conflict experiences of peacebuilding can help explain their WHR and GPI results. The intention is to start a meaningful debate on what peacebuilding’s overall objective should be – and to examine whether the measurement of happiness could be a useful starting point.

Original language	English
Article number	3
Pages (from-to)	303-322
Number of pages	20
Journal	Global Change, Peace & Security
Volume	31
Issue number	3
Early online date	15 May 2019
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/14781158.2019.1610372
Publication status	Published - 2019

Bibliographical note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Global Change, Peace & Security on 15/05/2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14781158.2019.1610372

Copyright © and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/ or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.

Keywords

former Yugoslavia
happiness
measurement
Peace
peacebuilding

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Sociology and Political Science
Political Science and International Relations

Access to Document

10.1080/14781158.2019.1610372

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Cite this

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Happiness as a measurement and goal of peacebuilding

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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