Johan Galtung

Johan Vincent Galtung (24 October 1930 – 17 February 2024) was a Norwegian sociologist and the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies.

By 1951, he was already a committed peace mediator, and elected to do 18 months of social service in place of his obligatory military service.

After 12 months, Galtung insisted that the remainder of his social service be spent in activities relevant to peace.

Galtung died in Bærum on 17 February 2024, at the age of 93.

Upon receiving his mag.

art.

degree, Galtung moved to Columbia University, in New York City, where he taught for five semesters as an assistant professor in the department of sociology.

He earned the cand. real. degree in mathematics at the University of Oslo in 1956, and a year later completed the mag. art. (PhD) degree in sociology at the same university.

He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its first director until 1970.

In 1959, Galtung returned to Oslo, where he founded the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

He also established the Journal of Peace Research in 1964.

In 1964, Galtung led PRIO to establish the first academic journal devoted to Peace Studies: the Journal of Peace Research.

In the same year, he assisted in the founding of the International Peace Research Association.

In 1969, he was appointed to the world's first chair in peace and conflict studies, at the University of Oslo.

He was the institute's director until 1969.

In 1969, he left PRIO for a position as professor of peace and conflict research at the University of Oslo, a position he held until 1978.

Galtung was the director general of the International University Centre in Dubrovnik and helped to found and lead the World Future Studies Federation.

He has held visiting positions at other universities, including Santiago, Chile, the United Nations University in Geneva, and at Columbia, Princeton and the University of Hawaii.

In Galtung's 1969 paper, "Violence, Peace and Peace Research", he presents his theory of the Conflict Triangle, a framework used in the study of peace and conflict, with the purpose of defining the three key elements of violence that form this "triangle."

The theory is based on the principle that peace must be defined by widely accepted social goals, and that any state of peace is characterized by the absence of violence.

When a conflict has features of all three areas of violence, the result is a more consolidated, static state of violence in a social system, which may include a conflict or a nation-state, whereas the absence of these three typologies of violence results in peace.

Galtung's concept of structural violence refers to the indirect forms of violence originating from social, economic, and political structures and manifesting primarily as oppression and exploitation.

These indirect forms of violence result in injustices in the distribution of political power and economic benefits.

Rather than conveying a physical image, structural violence is an avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs.

Structural violence is increased in situations where low income individuals also suffer in the rank dimensions of education, health, and power.

This is due to an overall consolidation of factors in the social structure, resulting in a high correlation between social class and disempowerment.

Galtung received the first of thirteen honorary doctorates in 1975.

Galtung's father and paternal grandfather were both physicians.

The Galtung name has its origins in Hordaland, where his paternal grandfather was born.

Nevertheless, his mother, Helga Holmboe, was born in central Norway, in Trøndelag, while his father was born in Østfold, in the south.

Galtung was married twice, and had two children by his first wife Ingrid Eide, Harald Galtung and Andreas Galtung, and two by his second wife Fumiko Nishimura, Irene Galtung and Fredrik Galtung.

Galtung experienced World War II in German-occupied Norway, and as a 12-year-old saw his father arrested by the Nazis.

He resigned his Oslo professorship in 1977 and thereafter held professorships at several other universities; from 1993 to 2000 he taught as Distinguished Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Hawaii.

In 1987, he was given the Right Livelihood Award.

In 1993, he co-founded TRANSCEND: A Peace Development Environment Network.

In 2014, he was appointed the first Tun Mahathir Professor of Global Peace at the International Islamic University Malaysia.

Economist and fellow peace researcher Kenneth Boulding has said of Galtung that his "output is so large and so varied that it is hard to believe that it comes from a human".

He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

He was the Tun Mahathir Professor of Global Peace at the International Islamic University Malaysia until 2015.

Galtung was born in Oslo.