The field has no shared definition of peace. Without one, progress cannot be measured, organisations cannot coordinate, and the case for investment is hard to make. Peace stays underfunded as a result, and money tends to react to violence rather than prevent it.
A 2024 review in the International Studies Review found that scholars have created 61 distinct peace concepts, each adding a qualifier to the root term. The researchers call this "peace with adjectives." Concepts multiply, but without a shared foundation they cannot build on one another.
This is the challenge the IGP was founded to address. Where that review maps the fragmentation, the IGP's structural framework proposes one possible foundation, one that different analytical approaches can build on without losing their focus.
The economic impact of violence reached an estimated $19.97 trillion in 2024. By contrast, global peacebuilding and peacekeeping spending totalled $47.2 billion. While these figures measure different things, the disparity speaks for itself.
Pie chart drawn to scale.
The framework offers a candidate definitional foundation against which research, funding, and policy can be traced. Read it in full, or open a conversation about a stakeholder context.