Johan Galtung

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Johan Galtung, second from left, and friends in Kilinochchi, Dec 04/Jan 05

Johan Galtung (born October 24, 1930, in Oslo, Norway) is a Norwegian professor, working at the Transcend Institute. He is seen as the pioneer of peace and conflict research and founded the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo. He is also one of the authors of an influential account of news values, the factors which determine coverage given to a given topic in the news media.

Galtung also originated the concept of Peace Journalism, increasingly influential in communications and media studies.

1 Academic career
2 Galtung in public and his works
3 Publications
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Academic career

Galtung, after founding the institute, became head of research until 1966 and eventually Director in 1970. In 1964 he founded the Journal of Peace Research. From 1969 to 1977 he was the first professor of peace and conflict research in Scandinavia, employed at the University of Oslo. He has also held numerous professorates at international universities, including Santiago in Chile, United Nations University in Geneva, and at Columbia, Princeton and the University of Hawaii in USA. He has also been entitled an emeritus at several other academic institutions.

[edit] Galtung in public and his works

Galtung several positions of trust in international research councils and has been an advisor to several international organisations. Since 2004 he is member of the Advisory Council of the Committee for a Democratic UN.

Moreover he has also written large quantities of empirical and theoretical articles, especially treating with issues of peace and conflict research. His works are engraved with his special ability of expression and his strong will of innovation and interdiscipline.

Galtung is frequently referenced in regard to concepts he introduced, or at least is commonly associated with:

Structural violence - widely defined as the systematic ways in which a given regime prevents individuals from achieving their full potential. Institutionalized racism and sexism are examples of this.
Negative vs. Positive Peace - introduced the concept that peace may be more than just the absence of overt violent conflict (negative peace), and include a range of relationships up to a state where nations (or any groupings in conflict) might have collaborative and supportive relationships (positive peace).

He has also distinguished himself in public debates, among others problems concerning the developing countries, matters of defence and in the Norwegian EU-debate. In 1987 he was given the Right Livelihood Award. He developed the Transcend Method.

In over 40 conflicts all over the world he participated as mediator, such as in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Caucasian area, and Ecuador. He has also advised Hawaiian sovereignty groups seeking to end what they see as a foreign occupation by the United States.

During the 70s, he predicted the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1990 with a precision of less than a year.^[1] Since the fall of the Soviet union, he's made several predictions of when the USA is to no longer be a functioning superpower - a practice that has created some controversy. After the beginning of the Iraq War, he revised his prediction of the "downfall of the USA", seeing it as more imminent because of this action.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Publications

Among some of his publications are:

Gandhi's political ethics (1955) (with philosopher Arne Næss)
Theory and Methods of Social Research (1967)
Members of Two Worlds (1971)
Peace, violence and imperialism (1974)
Peace Research – Education – Action (1975)
A Shaping Nightmare (1983)
Europe in the Making (1989)
Global Glasnost: Toward a New World Information and Communication Order? (1992) (With R. C. Vincent)
Peace By Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization (1996)
Johan without land (2000) (Autobiography)