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WASHINGTON, May 22 (OneWorld) - A unique new index takes a business-like approach to promoting global peace by ranking 140 countries and identifying the factors that place some countries higher than others on the list.

© Centre for Development and Population Activities"Peacebuilding is tough," said Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, adding that the Global Peace Index (GPI) facilitates the process by "defining the cultural [and political] attributes and the institutions that are associated with states of peace."

The countries in the GPI study represent 98 percent of the world's population and are ranked based on 24 indicators, including military expenditures, arms exports, prison population, internal conflict, political instability, displaced persons, potential for terrorist acts, human rights adherence, and UN deployments.

The findings of the first-of-its-kind study aim to "help countries, businesses, and international organizations move towards peace," said Barton.

Notably, a businessman discussing the GPI was "delighted to hear and see peace finally connected with concrete numbers, with metrical indicators, with concepts that can be weighed and compared, and yes -- even argued over," relayed Harriet Fulbright, president of the Fulbright Center, which promotes peace and justice worldwide. "'This makes peace more definable and therefore more real,' [the businessman] said. It also makes it easier to discuss action items which, if listed and accepted, can help us work toward a more peaceful world."

So what factors contributed to making Iceland the "most peaceful" country in relation to the 139 others included in the study, and what makes Iraq the "least peaceful"?

© Global Peace IndexThe "profile of a peaceful nation -- and this is characteristic of the top quartile of the countries [in the Index] -- is the country tends to have a well-functioning government, low violence within its borders, low corruption, and good relations with its neighbors," explained Clyde McConaghy, president and CEO of GPI.

Not surprisingly, 16 of the top 20 countries analyzed are democracies in western or central Europe and most of them are members of the European Union.

At fifth position, Japan stands out in its tier but nonetheless shares many "peaceful" qualities with countries like Denmark (ranked second) and Luxembourg (ninth).

Despite some minor political instability related to Shinzo Abe's scandal-tainted tenure as prime minister, Japan can boast having among the world's lowest rates of violent demonstrations and homicides.

At the other end of the spectrum, Somalia precedes Iraq as the second least peaceful country in the GPI.

"Somalia has not had a nationally functioning state government since its descent into civil war in 1991," notes the Institute for Economics and Peace, the organization housing the GPI.

The conflict between the Ethiopian-backed interim government and an Islamic-based rebel movement has forced 1 million Somalis to flee their homes in recent years.

The GPI also recorded a strong relationship between a country's wealth and relative peacefulness.

Despite this general correlation, however, the United States' ranking at 97 reflects its high levels of military expenditure and armed engagement beyond its borders. The large number of people in prisons in the United States also contributed to the country's placement in the bottom third of the Index.

Characteristics of peaceful and violent states can also be derived from an analysis of which countries rose and fell most in the Index since its initial launch a year ago.

Angola (ranked 110) leapfrogged a dozen other countries thanks to reductions in political instability, the likelihood of violent demonstration, the level of violent crime, the homicide rate, deaths from organized conflict, military capability, and access to weapons.

Many of these improvements likely stem from the consolidation of the Angolan ruling party's hegemony -- and ability to defuse local conflict -- five years after the end of a civil war.

Kenya (119), on the other hand, experienced a serious fall in the rankings due largely to the internal violence that rocked the nation following the contested presidential elections of December 2007.

© eyewash design (flickr)Paraguay's (70) relative level of peace also suffered a setback in 2007 as researchers recorded a decline in the overall respect for human rights. A rise in attacks on journalists and reports of prison detainees being tortured while in custody figured among these growing rights violations.

Despite these regressions, however, "the world seems to be slightly -- and I emphasize slightly -- more peaceful in 2007 than 2006," said Leo Abruzzese with the Economist Intelligence Unit, one of the organizations behind the GPI. Abruzzese attributed this optimistic conclusion to marginally lower levels of organized internal conflict, violent crime, and terrorist attacks around the world.

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