Peace Tech
What helps sustain peace? Trust. Cooperation. Parenting norms around warmth and nurturance. The media. There are a multitude of factors that can affect peace. Some occur at the individual level while others are more macro. In our model, we recognize that it is not only a myriad of factors which create lasting peace, but the way these elements influence each other.
The below map is a causal loop diagram. It shows the ways that different factors and processes interact to influence the likelihood of sustaining peace.
To explore the map, you can zoom in and out, using the + and - in the corner of the screen.
To learn more about the research supporting a certain factor, click on a colored dot on the map.
The different factors are color-coded to show whether they promote peach or help inhibit violence, and show whether they occur at the individual, community, or macro level.
To learn more about the research supporting a linkage between two factors on the map, click on a blue or red line connecting two factors.
Sometimes one element (e.g. trust) will heighten the level of another element (parenting norms of warmth), which will then raise the level of the original element (e.g. trust) causing a reinforcing feedback loop. Just as two elements may influence each other in a positive way, inhibiting loops can occur when elements constrain or obstruct each other’s flow.
Over time, certain configurations of these loops result in self-organizing patterns that resist change. We call these stable patterns attractor dynamics. Sustainable peace is ultimately a strong attractor dynamic for constructive interactions between different kinds of people, paired with a weak attractor dynamic for aggressive or negative interactions.
To model these complex dynamics, we used a method called causal loop diagramming. By mapping out the core factors and dynamics which impact peace, and then mapping broader elements which influence that core, we are able to visualize how different factors create dynamics that influence sustaining peace.
Help us improve this visualization! Please feel free to contact us with corrections or additions we can add to the citations in the linkages displayed above. You can also download a pdf of this visualization here.
